Date of Award:

5-1991

Document Type:

Thesis

Degree Name:

Master of Science (MS)

Department:

Plants, Soils, and Climate

Department name when degree awarded

Plants, Soils, and Biometeorology

Committee Chair(s)

Lynn M. Dudley

Committee

Lynn M. Dudley

Committee

Jerome J. Jurinak

Committee

William F. Campbell

Committee

Donald V. Sisson

Abstract

Soil salinity is a major concern to agriculture in arid and semiarid regions, where evapotranspiration causes salts originating from irrigation water (or sometimes naturally from the soil) to become concentrated in the rooting zone. In some areas, with good management, it has been economically feasible to ameliorate a sodic soil with Ca. The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of Ca amelioration of salinity (sodicity) on biomass, number of nodules, number of pods, weight of pods, ion uptake, and photosynthesis of Phaseolus vulgaris L.

Plants were grown in one liter styrofoam pots under greenhouse conditions. In the first experiment, Na stress was accomplished by adding NaCl and Na2SO4 at concentrations of 0, 20, 40, 60, and 80 mmolc/l. The second and third experiments used concentrations of 0, 15, 30, 45, and 60 mmolc/l NaCl or Na2SO4, combined with two levels of 15 and 30 mmolc/l of either CaSO4 or CaCl2. Each styrofoam pot was irrigated with 300 ml of salt solution with a 0.25 leaching fraction on every fourth day for four weeks.

Increasing Na concentration decreased biomass, number of nodules, number of pods, and weight of pods but increased ion uptake. Addition of NaCl in the substrate increased shoot Na, Ca, and Cl content, while Na2SO4 increased shoot S content. The photosynthesis rate was affected by all levels and types of sodium salts. Calcium sulfate treatments had a greater ameliorating effect than CaCl2 on Na induced salinity in snapbeans.

Checksum

32c70288f6dc20a68adb562d43c75368

Download

Share

COinS

Copyright for this work is retained by the student. If you have any questions regarding the inclusion of this work in the Digital Commons, please email us at .