Salt Tolerance of Six Switchgrass Cultivars

Youping Sun, Genhua Niu, Girisha Ganjegunte and Yanqi Wu
Additional contact information
Youping Sun: Department of Plants, Soils and Climate, Utah State University, 4820 Old Main Hill, Logan, UT 84322, USA
Genhua Niu: Texas A&M AgriLife Research Center at El Paso, Texas A&M University System, 1380 A&M Circle, El Paso, TX 79927, USA
Girisha Ganjegunte: Texas A&M AgriLife Research Center at El Paso, Texas A&M University System, 1380 A&M Circle, El Paso, TX 79927, USA
Yanqi Wu: Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK 74074, USA

Agriculture, 2018, vol. 8, issue 5, 1-11

Abstract: Panicum virgatum L. (switchgrass) cultivars (‘Alamo’, ‘Cimarron’, ‘Kanlow’, ‘NL 94C2-3’, ‘NSL 2009-1’, and ‘NSL 2009-2’) were evaluated for salt tolerance in two separate greenhouse experiments. In experiment (Expt.) 1, switchgrass seedlings were irrigated with a nutrient solution at an electrical conductivity (EC) of 1.2 dS·m −1 (control) or a saline solution (spiked with salts) at an EC of 5.0 dS·m −1 (EC 5) or 10.0 dS·m −1 (EC 10) for four weeks, once a week. Treatment EC 10 reduced the tiller number by 32% to 37% for all switchgrass cultivars except ‘Kanlow’. All switchgrass cultivars under EC 10 had a significant reduction of 50% to 63% in dry weight. In Expt. 2, switchgrass was seeded in substrates moistened with either a nutrient solution of EC 1.2 dS·m −1 (control) or a saline solution of EC of 5.0, 10.0, or 20.0 dS·m −1 (EC 5, EC 10, or EC 20). Treatment EC 5 did not affect the seedling emergence, regardless of cultivar. Compared to the control, EC 10 reduced the seedling emergence of switchgrass ‘Alamo’, ‘Cimarron’, and ‘NL 94C2-3’ by 44%, 33%, and 82%, respectively. All switchgrass cultivars under EC 10 had a 46% to 88% reduction in the seedling emergence index except ‘NSL 2009-2’. No switchgrass seedlings emerged under EC 20. In summary, high salinity negatively affected switchgrass seedling emergence and growth. Dendrogram and cluster of six switchgrass cultivars indicated that ‘Alamo’ was the most tolerant cultivar, while ‘NSL 2009-2’ was the least tolerant cultivar at both seedling emergence and growth stages. A growth-stage dependent response to salinity was observed for the remaining switchgrass cultivars. ‘NSL 2009-1’ and ‘NL 94C2-3’ were more tolerant to salinity than ‘Cimarron’ and ‘Kanlow’ at the seedling emergence stage; however, ‘Kanlow’ and ‘Cimarron’ were more tolerant to salinity than ‘NSL 2009-1’ and ‘NL 94C2-3’ at the seedling growth stage.

Keywords: Panicum virgatum; salinity; mineral nutrition; cluster analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/8/5/66/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/8/5/66/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jagris:v:8:y:2018:i:5:p:66-:d:143835

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture is currently edited by Ms. Leda Xuan

More articles in Agriculture from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().