MITIGATION OF SALT STRESS BY FOLIAR APPLICATION OF SALICYLIC ACID ON TOMATO PLANT

Abstract

A pot experiment was conducted at the Horticulture Farm of Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka-1207, Bangladesh from October, 2018 to March, 2019 to determine the mitigation of salt stress (NaCl 0, 6, 9, 12 and 15 dSm ) through salicylic acid (SA: 0, 100 and 200 ppm) in BARI Tomato- 15. The experiment was laid out in Completely Randomized Design (CRD) with three replications. SA alleviate salt stress on growth and metabolic activities of tomato plants. The data which were collected during the experiment are plant height, number of leaves, number of branches per plant, leaf area, days required for transplanting to 1

flowering, SPAD value, dry matter of plant, dry matter of fruit, number of flower cluster per plant, number of flowers per cluster, number of flowers per plant, number of fruit per plant, length of fruit, diameter of the fruit, weight of individual fruit, yield per plant etc. The results revealed that, salt treatment induced drastic reduction in growth characteristics of tomato plant through decreasing the plant height, number of leaves, number of branches per plant, leaf area, days required for transplanting to 1

flowering, SPAD value, dry matter of plant, dry matter of fruit, number of flower cluster per plant, number of flowers per cluster, number of flowers per plant, number of fruit per plant, length of fruit, diameter of the fruit, weight of individual fruit, yield per plant etc. In the majority of cases with the application of 100 ppm of SA

caused partial decrease in the deleterious effects of salinity in all parameters of this study. The highest yield (1411.0 g plant -1 ) was recorded from the application of 100 ppm of SA

while the lowest yield (687.00 g plant -1 ) was found from 0 ppm of SA

under saline condition. From this experiment, under saline and non-saline condition 100 ppm of SA

gave the best result for all the growth and yield parameters.