Copper Strategy in Response to Saline Water in Sweet Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L.)

Balanced supply of essential nutrients is one of the most important factors in increasing crop yields. Copper (Cu) is one of eight essential plant micronutrients and is required for many enzymatic activities in plants and for chlorophyll and seed production. These field results were used to estimate salt stress direct effects and improved methods for high production in saline soils with affected by micro nutrients. Current study was done according split plot design during 2020 and 2021 in sweet sorghum. Plants were Irrigated by saline water with different Electrical Conductivity |EC = 2 (Tl), 3 (T2), 4 (T3) milimohs cm-1 and control (T4)| in main plots and copper foliar spray |0 (C0), 0.20 (C1) and 0.40 (C2) kg net Cu ha-1| belonged to sub plots at stem elongation stage. The response of sweet sorghum to salt stress was statistically evaluated with affected by Cu and showed a significant difference in all traits but no differ in either year. Results from this analysis indicated that adding 0.40 kg net Cu ha-1 did significantly increase forage yield, sugar yield and ethanol yield; however, the increase in these traits did impact the overall silage quality expressed in estimated ethanol per litter per hectare. Compared forage and sugar yield exhibited significantly that C2 could enhance crop ability to Na in which decrease of sugar yield and plant weight was only 19.2% and 24.29% in 2013 and 17.7% and 25.52% in 2014 respectively, in T3 compared to T4. The key findings of this study can support the hypothesis that Cu can stimulate acclimation process in crops in saline lands which cause high ethanol fermentation and biomass production in sweet sorghum.