Effects of Salt and Nitrogen Stress on the Growth of Winter Rye

Dickinson College, Department of Environmental Studies and Science, 17013 Carlisle, PA, USA

Abstract

Winter Rye (Secale cereale L.) is an important food stock that are found on most part of the world that are coastal areas, which are now open to threats as global warming causes multiple issues that includes soil salination and high-concentration nitrogen run-off. As of right now, it’s already clear that salt will place a growth stress on most plants in high concentrations and will prohibit critical organs for nutrient intake, yet a number of researches stated that high dose of nitrogen will restore the growth of most wild and commercial plants. We are interested to find out how the interaction between salt and nitrogen can interfere with the growth of winter rye. A standard comprehensive 2-variable greenhouse assay was set up, with different levels of salt and nitrogen. After a 3-week growth period, an ANOVA test was conducted. The plants performance was inhibited when they are exposed to the lowest salt concentration and medium to high levels of nitrogen. In high saline environments, however, the performance of the plant was improved as it’s exposed to medium and particularly, high nitrogen levels. The finding of this study would be useful in ways that few previous studies had focused on the effect of salt and nitrogen stress on the grown of food species in case of global warming and population growth, and the subject should be studied on more food species in future researches.