Evaluation of the performance of some rangeland species under salt-stressed conditions

There was a genotypic variation in the performance of the investigated rangeland species (4 Atriplex sp., 1 Salsola sp.) under salinity stress conditions. The experiment was designed in (Split- Plot Design), in which the salt levels, in addition to control were applied in main plots, and the 5 investigated rangeland species were the sub-plots, with 4 replications for each specie at each level of salinity. The salinity stress was conducted after most of plants had reached the stage of complete germination, and till they had reached before flowering stage. In general the high salinity levels (9, 13 dS.m. 1) caused a significant reduction in plant fresh weight, plant dry weight, leaf content of K. and the increase of leaf area in all plants, on the other hand low concentration of the salt (5 dS.m. 1) had a positive effect, that the studied indicators significantly increased compared with control and the other treatment. Relative and absolute water content in cells showed a significant increase with the increase of salt concentration in the growth medium, that what explains how some species could tolerate salinity stress. There was a genotypic variation in the performance of the investigated rangeland species under salinity stress conditions in most of the indicators, that some species (A.halimus2. A.leucoclada, and partly A.halimus1) succeeded to increase their leaf ;area, wet weight, dry weight, relative, and absolute water content in cells, and conserve their membrane integrity comparing with the other species (A. canescen, Salsola vermiculata) which could not avoid perfectly the bad effects of salinity stress. After all, especially with the existent of genotypic variation more efforts could be done lot screening the tolerate species from the other sensitive ones, and screening even under a certain specie like A.halimus could be done also.