Interactive effects of salt stress and gibberellic acid (GA3) on germination and ion content of barley (Hordeum vulgare L.)

Abstract

Salinity is becoming one of the most important environmental factors lim-iting crop productivity around the world. Different strategies are employed to achieve optimal growth in saline conditions by employing some biochemi-cal agents such as plant hormones. This article provides an experimental investigation that was conducted to explore the effect of salt stress and hor-mones on barley. Three levels of salt stress tests, (0, 100 and 200 mM NaCl) on four barley genotypes (Hordeum vulgare L.): Jaidor, Fouara, Saida, and Tichedrett, were studied. Each test was treated with and without 20 μg/l of Gibberellic acid (GA3). Plants were assessed at germination and seedling growth stages to determine the percentage and the speed of germination, the coleoptile length, and the root length. In addition, the experimental in-vestigation was conducted to explore amount and the ash content of potas-sium and sodium due to salinity and the effect of gibberellic acid application to mitigate the impact of salt stress. The results revealed that the use of gib-berellic acid was beneficial in reducing the depressive effect of salt. In gen-eral, Jaidor registered the best results and Fouara registered the lowest ones. However, Saida and Tichedrett were marked with a high root K/Na ratio. In conclusion, the application of salt stress negatively affected the growth of the four studied genotypes. This effect is even more important as the intensity of the stress is high. However, the application of the GA3 hor-mone reduced the negative impact of the salt stress on all measured param-eters.