Interactive effect of salinity (NaCl) and potassium (k+) on in vitro growth of micropropagated potato
Paper Details
Interactive effect of salinity (NaCl) and potassium (k+) on in vitro growth of micropropagated potato
Abstract
Environmental stresses are among the most limiting factors to plant productivity. Among these, salinity is one of the biggest problems of Pakistan due to its arid to semi-arid climate. As the area under cultivation is limited and cannot be increased, we must resort to extensive salt affected areas worldwide to ensure food security. To utilize these salt affected areas we must devise strategies to able the crop plants to tolerate salinity and give economical yields. To accomplish this, current research was planned to understand the scope of alleviating the salinity stress by potassium application, the effects of salinity on plant’s morphology, ionic concentration in micropropagated plantlets of potato cv. Desiree. A two-way factorial experiment consisting of five levels of salinity (0mM, 25mM, 50mM, 75mM and 100mM NaCl) and three levels of Potassium (0mM, 10mM and 20mM KNO3) was designed. The maximum growth was observed in plants with 0mM both NaCl and KNO3. Results revealed that the plant growth parameters, i.e, shoot length, number of roots, leaf number and number of nodes were seriously affected by increasing level of salinity. The most prominent effects were observed at 100mM NaCl. Also the addition of KNO3 alone without NaCl has not shown any remarkable positive effect on growth of the plants. The beneficial effects of potassium were more pronounced at 20mM than 10mM KNO3. Salinity causes accumulation of Na+ ions in plants which affects the absorption of K+ by competing at uptake sites due to similar nature of both Na+ and K+ and by disturbing the membrane integrity by production of ROS causing leakage of K+. In this way nutritional imbalance results which was shown to be alleviated by the addition of KNO3. From this experiment, it has been concluded that the addition of potassium with different concentrations of NaCl alleviates the harmful effects of salinity by improving plant’s growth characteristics and K+/Na+ ratio of plants grown under salt stress under in vitro conditions.
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Zishan Gul*, Jawad Ahmed, Zafar Jamal, Naseem Ahmad, 2026. Interactive effect of salinity (NaCl) and potassium (k+) on in vitro growth of micropropagated potato. Int. J. Agron. Agric. Res., 28(4), 11-22.
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