EFFECT OF SODIUM SALT STRESS ON THE GROWTH OF ELYMUS REPENS

Plants are sensitive to the external environment that may either be in form of biological stress such as any pathogenic effect or abiological stress such as salt stress. Among the salt stresses, the most prominent stress is known as sodium salt stress, because sodium is involved in a wide range of plant metabolic activities preceded by calcium. To investigate the effect of sodium ion on plant, seeds of E. repens are first imbibed in distilled water for 2 hours, surface sterilized with 70% ethanol and then grown in sodium nitrate, sodium bisphosphate monobasic, trisodium citrate, sodium bromide, sodium carbonate, and sodium dichromate for 7 days in the concentration of 0.2%, 0.4%, 0.6%, 0.8%, 1% of salts compared with distilled water as control for each. At 8th day of germination, root and shoot length were noted using scale and fresh weight of root and shoot was noted using digital balance while dry weight of root and shoot was noted after drying them in incubator for 72 hours. Noted data elucidated that seedlings showed high growth in sodium nitrate while low growth in trisodium citrate, sodium carbonate and sodium dichromate. Growth in sodium bisphosphate and sodium bromide was slightly higher with increasing concentration of salt but still lower when compared to control. Moreover data for each salt was also used to find out the vigour index, stem weight ratio, root weight ratio, root stem ratio and relative water content to analyse the effect of salts on different aspects of plant growth.