GROWTH ABILITY OF MANGO CULTIVARS IRRIGATED WITH SALINE WATER

     Young mango plants, cultivars ‘Alphonso’, ‘Taimour’, ‘Ewaise’ ‘Hindy Bisinnara’ and ‘Zebda’ were irrigated with saline water at 0.0, 15, 30 or 45 mM NaCl in order to evaluate their growth ability under different salinity conditions. Nutrient solution salinity severely affected plant growth of all mango cvs. especially at its highest concentration (45mM). Water salinity caused a significant reduction in stem thickness, number of leaves /plant and average leaf area. Root and shoot dry weight was decreased with increasing salinity in all cvs., while root:shoot ratio was not affected. Negative salinity effects on growth of all the studied mango cvs. were appeared at a concentration of 30 mM or more. Some of tested growth parameters of ‘Alphonso’ cv. were obviously affected with the least concentration (15 mM) of salinity, while salt symptoms occurred later (45mM) with cv. ‘Zebda’. Leaf chlorophyll’s a and b were measured three times during the season. Their degradation rate occurred rapidly with cv. ‘Alphonso’, moderately with cvs. ‘Taimour’, ‘Ewaise’ and ‘Hindy Bisinnara’ and slowly with cv. ‘Zebda’. It could be summarized from the obtained results that mango plants cv. ‘Zebda’ are the most tolerant to salinity, while those of ‘Alphonso’ are the most sensitive.

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