Articles
QUINOA (CHENOPODIUM QUINOA WILLD.) SEEDLING, WATER UPTAKE AND YIELD RESPONSES TO IRRIGATION WATER SALINITY
Article number
1054_16
Pages
145 – 152
Language
English
Abstract
Salinity is an ever-increasing problem in agriculture worldwide, especially in the Mediterranean region.
Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.) is a new halophyte recently cultivated in the Mediterranean region and it was tested in irrigation water salinity conditions.
An experiment in pots was conducted in the south of Morocco in order to evaluate the responses of quinoa to different water salinity treatments (1, 10, 20 and 30 dS m-1). Adopted experimental design was cross-over with 8 replications for each treatment.
Differences in water uptake, growth and yield were tested in order to put forward the relative mechanisms of quinoa to cope with salt-induced damage.
The results showed a negative relationship between increasing water salinity and most of the measured plant growth parameters.
Irrigation water salinity negatively affected growth and biomass accumulation and led to reduced grain yield, water uptake and water productivity.
The added value of these results is that the crop responses to salinity are quantified.
The obtained values can be used to determine threshold values; should the salinity of the irrigation water go above these threshold values one may expect the crop yield parameters to be affected.
The quantified responses also indicate the rate of change of yield parameters in response to the irrigation water salinity level.
This could help in avoiding significant yield reduction when deciding on the irrigation water salinity level to be used for the studied quinoa cultivar.
Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.) is a new halophyte recently cultivated in the Mediterranean region and it was tested in irrigation water salinity conditions.
An experiment in pots was conducted in the south of Morocco in order to evaluate the responses of quinoa to different water salinity treatments (1, 10, 20 and 30 dS m-1). Adopted experimental design was cross-over with 8 replications for each treatment.
Differences in water uptake, growth and yield were tested in order to put forward the relative mechanisms of quinoa to cope with salt-induced damage.
The results showed a negative relationship between increasing water salinity and most of the measured plant growth parameters.
Irrigation water salinity negatively affected growth and biomass accumulation and led to reduced grain yield, water uptake and water productivity.
The added value of these results is that the crop responses to salinity are quantified.
The obtained values can be used to determine threshold values; should the salinity of the irrigation water go above these threshold values one may expect the crop yield parameters to be affected.
The quantified responses also indicate the rate of change of yield parameters in response to the irrigation water salinity level.
This could help in avoiding significant yield reduction when deciding on the irrigation water salinity level to be used for the studied quinoa cultivar.
Authors
A. Hirich, R. Choukr-Allah, A. Jelloul, S.-E. Jacobsen
Keywords
growth, yield, quinoa, crop water productivity, water uptake
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