Salicylic Acid Enhances Growth and Productivity in Cabbage (Brassica oleracea var. Capitata L.) Grown Under Saline Condition

This experiment was set up to investigate the beneficial effect of salicylic acid to reduce the harmful consequence of salinity on cabbage productivity where Salt stress severely limits plant growth, development and yield.
We had grown cabbage plants under different levels of NaCl salinity (0, 4, 8 dS m -1) alone or supplemented with foliar spray of different concentrations of salicylic acid (SA, 0, 0.25 and 0.5 mM). This experiment was laid out in a randomized complete block design with three replications. Collected all data were statistically analyzed following the analysis of variance (ANOVA) technique using MSTAT-C program and the mean differences were adjudged by least significant difference (LSD) test at 5% level of significance.
Results showed that, higher concentrated salt treated plants give the significant lower growth and head yield. Plant growth as well as yield of cabbage such as heads thickness, diameter and weight were decreased with increased level of salinity such as 8 dS m-1 compared with other treatment. While, foliar application of SA increased growth and yield also hindered stress induced growth and production inhibition. The improvement in plant height, leaf number, leaf length and breadth, foliage coverage, number of root and weight, head thickness, diameter and weight were increased with increased concentration of SA and higher value were recorded from 0.50 mM SA.
It can be concluded that SA improve the plant defense system to resist the toxic effect of salinity.