Effect of salt stress on the morpho physiological characteristics of some salinity phytoremediating plant

Abstract

The problems of soil salinity are most widespread in the arid and semi-arid. Soil salinity is also a serious problem in areas where groundwater of high salt content is used for irrigation. The most serious salinity problems are being faced in the irrigated arid and semi-arid regions of the world and it is in these very regions that irrigation is essential to increase agricultural production to satisfy food requirements. However, irrigation is often costly, technically complex and requires skilled management. Failure to apply efficient principles of water management may result in wastage of water through seepage; over-watering and inadequate drainage result in water logging and salinity problems which reduce the soil productivity, eventually leading to loss of cultivable land. About one-third areas of these problem soils in Haryana are saline and the chlorides and sulphates of sodium, calcium and magnesium are the dominating soluble salts in them (Dahiya and Laura 1988). The existing technologies on farm salinity management that work well include surface and sub-surface drainage. These are basically civil engineering technologies and are costly to install, difficult to maintain and have the problem of saline effluent management. Apart from that, under Indian conditions with fragmented land holdings a wide application of such technology seems utopian newlineStudy Area: Hisar, the west central most district of Haryana State with a total geographical area of 3983.00 sq. km is lies between the North latitudes 28o56 00 : 29o38 30 and East longitudes 75o 21 12 : 76o18 12.The district area falls in Yamuna sub-basin of Ganga basin. There is no natural drainage in the district area. However, the area is drained by network of canals and the artificial drains (field drains/channels). These artificial drains are mainly confined in Bass, Hansi-I, Narnaund and Barwala blocks. There are a total of 39 drains existing in the area, which run for a distance of 126.25 Ecophysiology of native flora of saline wastelands throws light on their