CALCIUM INDUCED CHANGES IN EARLY SEEDLING GROWTH OF RICE (Oryza sativa L.) UNDER SALT STRESS

Abstract

Salt stress is a severe limiting factor for rice production worldwide. So a pot experiment was conducted at the research field of the Department of Agroforestry and Environmental Science, Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka during the period from February 2021 to April 2021 to find out the effect of calcium in mitigation of salt stress in BRRI dhan 28 (inbreed) with nine treatments in combination with three doses of NaCl (0 mM, 50 mM and 100 mM) and three doses of CaCl 2 (0 mM, 2.5 mM and 5 mM) in completely randomized design with three replications. Salt stress drastically damaged morpho-physiological attributes and growth performance of rice in dose dependent manner. In contrast use of 2.5 mM CaCl 2 under salt stress had positive impact on plant height, relative growth rate, number of leaves per plant, length of flag leaf, width of flag leaf, fresh weight of plant, dry weight of plant, relative water content (RWC) and SPAD value at 25, 40 and 55 at days after sowing (DAS) under both level of salt stresses. But addition of 5 mM CaCl 2 showed good result under 50 mM NaCl stress only. So, addition of 2.5 mM CaCl 2 in fertilization process might be a solution for rice production under salt stress.