Stimulating the Anti-Oxidative Role and Wheat Growth Improvement Through Silicon Under Salt Stress

Purpose Salt stress poses a threat to wheat performance that can be managed by silicon application. Therefore, the current short term experiment was aimed to learn the effect of silicon on the defense system, ionic composition and growth of wheat in the presence and absence of salt stress. Methods In the current experiment, the influence of silicon (6 mM) on anti-oxidative potential and dry matter yield of wheat genotypes (salt sensitive; Fareed-06 and salt tolerant; Inqlab-91) was studied under saline (10 dS/m) and control (2 dS/m) hydroponic solutions. The whole Si was applied to the pots of the Si+ treatment (6 mM) using calcium silicate solution. CaCl2 solution was applied to the pots of the Si-deficient treatment to balance the same total of Ca as in the Si+ treatment to obtain the sole effect of Si. Various ionic, biochemical and growth parameters of wheat plants were recorded after 34 days of transplanting according to standard procedures. Results Silicon addition to the hydroponic solution increased wheat seedling weight, K:Na with limited Na and enhanced K uptake. Moreover, Si increased chlorophyll chl a/b ratio and promoted the actions of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase (CAT). Conclusions It can be concluded that silicon supplementation improved the wheat growth and plant defense suppressed by the salt applied. Further, salt tolerant variety gave better performance than the salt sensitive variety.