Identification of Allogibberelic acid in glume of Aeluropus littoralis and its effect on seed germination under salinity stress

Salinity resistant plants are important biotic components of arid and semi arid ecosystems.Aeluropus littoralis is recognized a valuable rangeland plant. Most species of genus Aeluropus are considered halophyte species. Several studies have been done to investigate effects of salinity on halophyte seed germination but there is limited literatures on effect of seed glume compounds on germination at different levels of salinity. Therefore, to understand the mechanism of germination in Aeluropus littoralis and also to find the effect of seed coat on germination rate at different concentrations of salinity, an experiment was done in complete randomized factorial design with three replications. For this purpose, six salinity levels (50, 100, 150, 200, 300 and 400 mM) and two seed coat conditions (with glume and without glume) were applied. The results showed thatincrease salinity levels leads to decrease in germination properties in both seed coatconditions.Seed without glumewas affected more than glume ones. The salinity-glume intraction was also significant at 5 % probability. The result of chemical analysis of methanol extract of glumes through GC-MS, revealed the existence of allogibberelic acid,a derivative of GA3 phytohormon in glumes. This compound was considered as an important factor for germination differences between glume-containing and without glume seeds under different salt treatments.