Frequent periods of drought and salt stress are a major threat to agriculture, reducing yields of key crops. Salinity stress affects the physiological and biochemical processes in plants, influencing their growth and development. The representative within cereals, wheat, shows a large variance in salinity tolerance, depending on variety and environmental conditions. In this context, an experiment was conducted in order to test the morphological response of ten wheat varieties under salinity stress. Were assessed agronomical important morphological parameters like plant height, spike length and awns length with calliper method. Salinity doses and exposure duration influenced the evaluated parameters. The most vigorous and tolerant wheat plants were Pădureni, with the significant highest mean values for plant height of 66.23±4.92 cm and awns length of 5.97±0.32, both values at the same salinity dose of 60 mM NaCl. Spike length feature registered significant higher mean value of 10.27±0.37 cm for Transilvania wheat at 15 mM NaCl. High salinity sensitivity were observed at Ciprian wheat variety regarding plant height and Bezostaia regarding spike and awns length. Further studied should be focused on testing spring varieties sown in autumn to follow this study finding and to establish if spring wheat varieties treated as winter wheat are more tolerant to salinity or other stress types.

Abiotic stress, awns, height, spike, vigor, salinity

agronomy

Presentation: poster