ALLEVATING THE IMPACT OF SALINTY STRESS ON MAIZE PLANTS USING SOME ANTIOXIDANTS

Abstract

The current investigation aimed to study the effect of foliar application of α-tocopherol (Toc, 25 and 50 ppm.) and selenium, Na2SeO4,(Se, 2.5 and 5 µM) on maize plants irrigated by three different concentrations (0, 50 and 100 mM) of saline water as NaCl. To investigate each one of the abovementioned treatments, two pot experiments were carried out at the Experimental Farm, Faculty of Agriculture, Ain Shams University, Shoubra El-Kheima, Kalubia Governorate, Egypt during the summer growing seasons of 2017 and 2018. Accordingly, the results of present work can be summarized as following:

1. Growth parameters 1. Exposing maize plants to salt stress dramatically decreased and significant (P≤0.05) adversely negatively affected all studied growth parameters, photosynthetic pigmentsand grain yield of maize and its attributes compared to the unstressed plants in both seasons. 2. Foliar application of 25 ppm α-tocopherol achieved the highest significant valuesof plant height compared to the other treatments in both seasons.Moreover, the treatment of 2.5 µM Na2SeO4 resulted in the highest significant values in leaf area, leaves fresh weight, stem fresh weight, total shoot fresh weight, stem dry weight and total shoot dry weight compared to the untreated plants in both seasons. 3. Concerning the effect of interaction between the salinity levels and different studied foliar applications, the treatment of 25 ppm α-tocopherol gave the highest significant increases in plant height under different examined levels of water salinity compared to the untreated plants in both seasons.Generally, the treatment of 2.5 µM Na2SeO4 achieved the highest significant increases in leaf area, leaves fresh weight, stem fresh weight, total shoot fresh weight, stem dry weight and total shoot dry weight under different tested levels of salinity.