The Effect of Silicon Foliar Application on Some Agronomic Traits of Camelina under Drought Stress Conditions

The research aimed to investigate the effect of silicon foliar spraying in increasing drought tolerance in Camelina.

The experiment was conducted as a factorial based on a randomized complete blocks design with three replications in a pot experiment. The treatments included two Camelina genotypes (Sohail cultivar and line-84), drought treatments (at two levels: without and with drought stress) and foliar spraying of sodium silicate (at five levels: 0, 2, 4, 6 and 8 mM).

The results showed that drought stress decreased grain yield, yield components, and morphological traits of both Camelina genotypes. Drought stress reduced the grain weight per plant of the Sohail cultivar and Line-84 by about 27 and 39%, respectively. Foliar application of silicon effectively increased yield and yield components. On average, foliar spraying of 6 mM silicon compared to the control treatment caused an increase in the traits of grain weight per plant (13.04%), harvest index (12.1%), and the number of siliques per plant (7%). In the correlation analysis, it was found that among the grain yield components, the highest positive correlation coefficient with the grain weight per plant belonged to the number of siliques per plant (0.941).

Overall, it seems that foliar application of 6 mM silicon can be effective in increasing drought tolerance in Camelina.