Investigating the effect of calcium on growth, oxidative indices, ascorbate, glutathione and antioxidant enzymes activity in triticale (× Triticosecale Wittmack) under salt stress

Salinity is a developing problem in agricultural soils. Calcium plays an important role in the resistance of plants to salt stress.

In order to investigate the mutual effect of sodium-calcium on growth, oxidative indices and antioxidant defense system in triticale plant, an experiment was conducted as a completely randomized design with 3 replications in greenhouse conditions.

One week after planting seeds in the soil, seedlings were treated with sodium chloride dosages (0, 50, 100 and 150 mmol L-1) and calcium chloride dosages (0, 6 and 10 mmol L-1). After 5 weeks of stress, some morpho-physiological and biochemical parameters including shoot and root length, chlorophyll-meter number (SPAD), oxidative indices (malondialdehyde, other aldehydes, hydrogen peroxide and lipoxygenase enzyme activity), reduced ascorbate, dehydroascorbate, reduced glutathione and antioxidant enzymes activity (guaiacol peroxidase, catalase, superoxide dismutase, ascorbate peroxidase and polyphenol oxidase) of leaves was measured.

The results showed that salinity stress significantly decreased the length of shoot and root, SPAD, reduced ascorbate and reduced glutathione in leaf but increased the amount of oxidative indices, dehydroascorbate and antioxidant enzymes activity in leaf. While addition of calcium to the saline medium increased the length of shoot and root, SPAD, reduced ascorbate and reduced glutathione in leaf, but decreased the amount of oxidative indices, dehydroascorbate and antioxidant enzymes activity in leaf.

Adding calcium to the saline medium reduced the harmful impacts of salinity stress and the most beneficial impacts of calcium were observed at a concentration of 6 mmol/ L-1.