沙漠研究 19-1, 177- 180 (2009 )Journal of Arid Land Studies“Desert Technology IX ”
Refereed Paper

Effect of Salicylic Acid on the Growth and Mineral nutrition in Salt Stressed Wheat Plants
Hela BEN AHMED1, Arafet MANAA1 and Ezzeddine ZID1
Abstract: The effect of 0.1 mM salicylic acid (SA) on the counteracting of the NaCl 100
mM-induced deleterious effects on wheat (Triticum durum Desf., var. Razzak) was studied.
Effects of SA on salt tolerance of wheat were determined by measuring the growth parameters:
shoot and root dry weights. Photosynthetic pigments chlorophylls a and b content and mineral
nutrition were investigated in response to the interactive effects of SA and NaCl treatment.
Application of 0.1 mM SA through the rooting medium increased plant growth significantly bothin saline and control conditions. The results showed that the growth of shoot, and not that ofroots, is reduced by 36 % in the presence of NaCl, and only of 14.5 % when SA is present in themedium. NaCl significantly reduced photosynthetic pigments content. Whereas, the additionof SA induce an increase of these contents. Also, SA inhibited Na+ accumulation, but stimulated
K+ and Ca2+ contents of salt stressed plants. These results suggest that SA could be used as apotential growth regulator to improve plant salinity stress resistance.
Keywords: Growth, Nutrition, Salicylic acid, Salt stress, Wheat

1. Introduction
The role of salicylic acid (SA) in defence mechanisms against pathogen attack has been known forseveral years (Yalpani et al., 1993). In recent years its role has been widely investigated in both biotic
and a biotic stress (salinity, drought, water deficit and so on) (Gunes et al., 2007). Excessive soil salinity
is an important constraint limiting the distribution of plants in natural habitats, and is an increasingly
severe agricultural problem in arid and semi-arid regions (Lauchli and Epstein, 1990). About 15 million
hectares are affected by salinity in the Maghreb and the Middle East. In Tunisia, the (semi) arid
Mediterraneanan bio-climatic regions are frequently irrigated with water reached in salt. Consequently,
about 10% of the whole territory area and 20% of the cultivated lands are salinized (Hachicha et al., 1994).
Convincing data have been obtained on the SA-induced increase in the resistance of wheat seedlings tosalinity (Afran et al., 2007), and water deficit (Bezrukova et al., 2001), of maize to low temperature(Janda et al., 1999) of tomato and bean plants to low and high temperature (Senaratna et al., 2000) as wellas on the detrimental action of heavy metals on rice plants (Mishra and Choudhuri, 1999). However, thebeneficial effect of SA application depends on type of species or cultivar and with the concentration of SA
applied. Of the varing SA level used, Arfan et al. (2007) and Stevens et al. (2006) reported that themost effective levels for promoting growth were the lower concentration of SA applied (0.1- 0.75 mM).
The aim of this work was to study the responses of growth and mineral nutrition in wheat (Triticum durumDesf., cv Razzak) to the interactive effects of salicylic acid (SA) 0.1 mM and NaCl treatment 100 mM.
2. Materials and Methods
Sterilized seeds of wheat (Triticum durum Desf., var. Razzak), obtained from the wheat section,
Agricultural Research Institute, Tunis, Tunisia, were germinated for 4 days at room temperature, thengrown in hydroponics nutrient solution. The composition of this one was made of K+, 3.0 mM; Ca2+, 3.5mM; Mg2+, 1.0 mM; NO3-, 8.0 mM; SO42-, 1.0 mM; P, 1.5 mM, Fe, 1.4 ppm; Mn, 0.25 ppm; B, 0.16 ppm;Cu, 0.03 ppm; Zn, 0.03 ppm and Mo, 0.01 ppm. The experiment was carried in a growth chamber underartificial light (150 µmol m-2 s-1; 16h photoperiod), at 25 ˚C day/20 ˚C night and air humidity 60-80%.
Three days after, four treatments were applied: (1) control (nutrient solution), (2) SA (0.1 mM), (3) NaCl(100 mM) and (4) SA (0.1 mM) with NaCl (100 mM). pH was adjusted with KOH 1.0 N. After 13days of treatments, plants were harvested and divided into roots and shoots. Estimation of pigment
contents was achieved by application of the method of Torrecillas et al. (1984): 80% acetone extract wascolorimetric all assayed at 649 and 665 nm. Extraction of ions was achieved in HNO3 (0.1 N). Na+, K+1Unité d’Ecophysiologie et Nutrition des plantes. Department of Biology. Faculty of Sciences Tunis El Manar. 1060.
Tunisia. E-mail: benahmed_hela@yahoo.fr

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and Ca2+ were assayed by flame emission photometry. Analysis of variance was used for the statisticalanalysis of data. Mean separation procedures were carried out using the multiple range tests with
Fisher’s least significant difference procedure (p<0.05).
3. Results and Discussion
Salinity decreased significantly wheat plant growth significantly (Fig. 1A). The depressive effect ofNaCl appears mainly in shoots than in roots. The shoot biomass was about 64 % of the control.
Whereas, the growth of root system was stimulated by salinity. Which results in reduction of shoot/root
dry weight. But this reduction was suppressed when adding SA 0.1 mM to the culture medium.
Salicylic acid-treated wheat plants exhibited an increase in tolerance to salt treatment. This increase insalt tolerance was reflected in the measured growth criteria: dry weight of shoots were increased comparing
with plants received NaCl only. In the presence of SA 0.1 mM, the sensitivity to NaCl of the whole plant
was decreased about only 7% compared to the control treatment (Fig. 1A).

160AControl

B1.2bSADry weight, mg120babbb80bb

NaCl + SAaa40aa a a

Chlorophyll contents, mg.FW-1NaClabab
a0.8bbabacb0.4

ab a0.00
RootsShoots

Total plant

Total chlorophyll

Chlorophyll a

Chlorophyll b

Fig. 1. Production of whole plant, roots and shoots dry weight (A) and Chlorophyll contents in leaves (B) ofwheat plants grown for 13 days in nutrient solution with 100 mM NaCl ± 0.1 mM salicylic acid.
Different letter on top of bars indicate significant difference according to LSD test (p< 0.05) at each treatment.
(n= 10 ± SE).

The improvement of the tolerance to salt by SA can be related to two factors: the stimulation of theroot growth activity and the attenuation of the depressive effect of NaCl on the shoots. Salinity and SA
treatment affect photosynthetic pigments such as chlorophyll a, chlorophyll b and total chlorophyll contents(Fig. 1B). The figure showed that the pigments (chlorophyll a, b) content of NaCl-treated wheat plants
was significantly decreased below that of the control. Whereas, the addition of SA in the culture medium
induces an increase in these parameters. In the presence of NaCl, the amounts of K+ and Ca2+ absorbed byroots and transported to the shoots were restricted. Potassium and calcium content of plants decreased
significantly in saline conditions (Fig. 2), which suggests a deficit of provisioning of the plants in essential
ion to the growth. The addition of salicylic acid in the culture medium improves accumulation of K+ andCa2+ on the shoots. The absorption and the transport to shoots of high contents of sodium in salineconditions were attenuated by the addition of SA 0.1 mM. Indeed application of SA induced asignificantly decreases in Na+ content as compared to the plants treated only by NaCl 100 mM (Fig. 2).
Positive effect of SA on the K+ and Ca2+ uptake, and inhibitory effect on Na+ uptake should also be
responsible for managing salinity of wheat plants.
Salinity decreased K/Na selectivity in the two organs. Whereas SA addition ameliorates selectivityin favour of K+. In fact, at salinity level 100 mM NaCl, the K/(K+Na) ratio in shoots was equal to 0.368,
these ratio was enhanced (about 0.417) when adding SA 0.1 mM to the culture medium (Table 1).
Thus SA ameliorate the aptitude of whole plant to ensure a sufficient supply K+ by maintaining a highselectivity for this essential nutriment, in spite of excess of Na+ in the medium. Dry weights of roots andshoots decreased by salt (Fig. 1A). These results are in agreement with those of Munns (2002) who
showed that salinity caused a marked reduction in growth parameters. Exogenous application of SA

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3000

3000

3000

ControlcSAb2000

ba ab1000

aaNa+, µmol.DW-1

K+, µmol.DW-1

NaCl + SAb bCa2+, µmol.DW-1

NaCl

2000

1000

b

Shootsaa aa00
Roots

b1000

bcb ba a a02000

Roots

Roots

Shoots

ShootsFig. 2. K+, Ca2+, and Na+ content in wheat plants grown for 13 days in nutrient solution with 100 mM NaCl ± 0.1
mM salicylic acid. Different letter on top of bars indicate significant difference according to LSD test (p<0.05) at each treatment. (n= 10 ± SE).
Table 1. K/(K+Na) ratio in roots and shoots of wheat plants grown for 13 days in nutrient solution with 100
mM NaCl ± 0.1 mM salicylic acid. Different letter on top of bars indicate significant difference according
to LSD test (p< 0.05) at each treatment. (n= 10 ± SE).

K/(K+Na)
Treatment

RootsShoots

Control

0,993± 0.001 b

0.838± 0.031 c

SA 0.1 mM

0.968± 0.005 c

0.994± 0.001 c

NaCl 100 mM

0.373± 0.050 a0.368± 0.032 a

NaCl 100 mM + SA 0.1 mM

0.374± 0.055 a0.417± 0.039 b

through the rooting medium had an ameliorative as well as growth promoting effect under both non-salineand saline conditions (Fig. 1A). It was shown in a previous work that 0.5 mM of SA added in thehydroponics solution of maize increased its tolerance to salt stress (Németh et al., 2002). Application of0.1 mM SA also increased fresh and dry weights of both shoots and roots under non-saline conditions(Gunes et al., 2007). Dhaliwal et al. (1997) attributed this amelioration in growth production to anincrease in photosynthesizing tissue of leaves. Which was in agreement with our results, in fact
application of 0.1 mM SA through the rooting medium increased pigments chlorophyll b in salt stressedplants (Fig. 1B). This effect of SA application on photosynthetic pigments was expected in many studies
that showed increased or decreased photosynthetic pigments following SA application, depending onspecies (Arfan et al., 2007). The presence of salt in root medium causes disturbances in the mineral
nutrition of the plant. NaCl reduces K+ and Ca2+ uptake and translocation from roots to shoots more
severely (Fig. 2). Greenway and Munns (1980) suggested that the susceptibility of many glycophytes tosalt is due to an insufficient ion supply. Indeed, in wheat, salt reduces K+ uptake and induces Ca2+deficiency (Ouerghi, 2001). Application of SA through the rooting medium inhibited Na+ accumulation,
but stimulated K+ and Ca2+ concentrations of salt stressed wheat plants (Fig 2). Al-Hakimi and Hamada(2001) studied the effect of SA on ion uptake in wheat. They found that SA decreased Na content of
wheat shoot and root tissues under salinity. These results suggest that SA could be used as a potential
growth regulator to improve the resistance of plant to salinity stress.
4. Conclusions
It might be concluded that SA treatment of salt stressed wheat could stimulate their salt tolerance via
increasing their performance to absorb K+ and reducing the transport of Na+ to shoots. This study
suggests that SA could be used as a potential growth regulator to improve plant growth and nutrient

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utilization under salt stress.
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