Amelioration of the Adverse Effects of Salinity Stress by Using Bio-stimulant Moringa on Cotton Plant

SALINITY is one of a great environmental stresses limiting productivity of crops. Moringa leaf extract (MLE) is considered as bio-stimulant and eco-friendly fertilizer, which being rich in amino acids, minerals, and growth hormones. A pot experiment was conducted in 2020 and 2021 seasons at greenhouse of Plant Physiology Department, Cotton Research Institute, Agricultural Research Center, Giza, Egypt. This experiment design was split-plot with three replications, which the main plots were devoted to salinity water irrigation (SWI) concentrations (0, 6000 and 10000ppm), while the sub-plots were randomly of MLE foliar application concentrations (10, 20 and 30%) at three times (squaring, beginning and top flowering stages) to investigate the effective concentration of MLE foliar application on chemical constituents, growth, yield and fiber parameters under SWI concentrations on Giza 97 cotton cultivar. MLE foliar application enhanced significantly chemical constituent, enzymes activity, growth, yield and fiber properties as compared with untreated plants under different SWI concentrations. The best results were recorded by spraying MLE at concentration of 30% about (15.30 and 16.61%) for number of opened bolls/plant, (15.27 and 10.56%) for boll weight and (31.36 and 33.56%) for seed cotton yield as compared to untreated plants in both seasons, respectively. On the other hand, salinity conditions caused significantly reduction in pigments contents, growth and yield. However, it caused significantly increasing in osmolyte compounds and enzymes activity on cotton. The interaction between SWI and MLE treatments effected significantly on chemical constituents, enzymes activity, growth, yield characters, while did not affect significantly on fiber properties.