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Germination and Physiological Responses of Calotropis gigantea (L.) Seeds from Different Habitats under Salinity Stress

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: GIANT MILKWEED (Calotropis gigantea) is a fiber resource shrub, which spreads in many countries worldwide and has important medicinal values. To evaluate the germination, emergence and post-emergence responses of different habitats’ seeds of C. gigantea under salinity stress, two experiments (sand and pot culture) were carried out following a completely randomized design. The treatments consisted of seven levels of NaCl-induced salinity, viz. 0 (control, S0), 5 (S1), 6 (S2), 7 (S3), 8 (S4), 9 (S5), and 10 (S6) dS m−1; and five natural habitats’ seeds collected from road side (T1), railway line (T2), river bank (T3), waste dump (T4), and grazing land (T5). Results showed that the salt stress remarkably diminished germination percentage (2.39 to 72.09%), emergence percentage (3.51 to 75.00%), seedling growth and photosynthetic pigments (0.72 to 35.23% and 0.82 to 41.39% for total chlorophyll and carotenoids, respectively), while increased the stress-responsive traits such as proline contents (8.90 to 305.00%). However, the attributes were fluctuated among different habitats’ seeds at various saline environments, even at the same concentration. Based on the studied trait and salt tolerance index (STI), the superior performance of different habitats’ seeds was revealed as T1 > T3 > T5 > T2 > T4 in non-saline condition (S0), while it was observed as T2 > T4 > T3 > T1 > T5 under salinity stress (S1-S6). Therefore, we considered that the railway line habitats’ seeds could be a revegetation material in degraded saline areas till 10 dSm−1, for the production of medicinal inputs and ecological restoration.

Source: Egyptian Journal of Agronomy

DOI: 10.21608/agro.2025.391795.1715