The Effect of Salt Stress on the Germination of Two Species of Sorghum

Abstract

     This study was conducted using Petri dishes to study the ef-fect of different concentrations of sodium chloride solution on the ger-mination of seeds of two cultivars of Sorghum , namely Sorghum bicol-or and Sorghum Sudanese. Concentrations were used 0, 0.6%, 1.2%, 2.4% and 3%. Germination percentage, germination rate index, radicle length and plumule length were measured in both cultivars. The results showed that the highest percentage of germination was at the concentra-tion (0.6%) and the lowest was at the 3% concentration‚The high per-centage of germination in the concentration (0.6%) is due to the fact that the concentration of salts when it is in a small percentage helps to stimu-late the growth process, and this almost applies to Sorghum Sudanese as well, however, germination in Sorghum sudanese started on the fifth day at the concentration of 2.4%.  For sorghum bicolor, salt stress had a neg-ative effect on radicle and plumule growth in both cultivars, as the root length ranged from 5.22 in the control treatment to 0.83 cm at the high-est salinity concentration, and the plumule length ranged from 3.55 cm at 1.2% to 0.65 cm at the highest salinity concentration in As for the sor-ghum Sudanese, it had the best radicle growth at   the control treatment (2.33 cm) and the least growth at the concentration 3% (0.65 cm), and the best growth of the plumule was (1.36 cm) at the control tretment and the least growth (0.44 cm) at the 3% concentration. In general, the two cultivars were able to maintain germination even at a high concentration of salinity, even at a low level, with sorghum bicolor outperforming Su-danese sorghum, which gives it preference when choosing salinity  re-sistant cultivars.