Silicon Effects on the Growth and Yield of Chickpea under Salinity Stress

Salinity is a major abiotic stress that limits growth and productivity of crop plants. Role of silicon (Si) in mitigating salt stress damages has gained an increasing attention in recent years. Chickpea is a sensitive crop to salinity and grown mainly in arid and semi-arid regions of the world. This study was conducted to investigate the protective effect of Si on a chickpea landrace from Iran. A factorial experiment was conducted in a completely randomized design with three replications. Salinity at four levels (0, 3, 5 and 7 dS m(-1)) and silicon at three levels (0, 0.5 and 1 mM) were applied. Phenological, physiological and biochemical characteristics were studied to evaluate Si effects on chickpea yield and its components. Application of Si had no significant effect on phenological traits. Growth related traits, including number of leaves and branches, total dry matter, percent of fertile branches and leaf carbohydrate content were decreased by salinity stress. However, Si application was able to mitigate the effect of salinity in the measured traits. The amount of leaf proline content increased by intensifying salinity stress but using Si showed a significant decrease in proline production. The results showed positive and highly significant correlations between grain yield and total dry matter, leaf number and percent of fertile branches. While a negative and significant correlation was observed between yield and phenological traits as well as leaf proline. It seems that Si can indirectly alleviate the induced damaging effects through increase in vegetative growth. (C) 2017 Friends Science Publishers