Assessment of Morphological and Physiological Traits of Moroccan Barley (<i>Hordeum vulgare</i> L.) Varieties Submitted to Severe Salt Stress

Abstract

The maintenance of Moroccan barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) cultivation under rising saline conditions requires investigations to be performed. In the present work, we aimed to test the effect of salt stress on four Moroccan barley varieties (ADRAR, AMIRA, LAANACEUR, and MASSINE). Salt stress was applied by increasing NaCl concentration gradually in nutrient solution to 300 mM (Severe stress). Our results showed that salt stress induces significant decreases in RDW, SDW, and Chl content. In addition, significant increases of EL% and proline content were recorded. Analysis of variance showed a significant intraspecific variability between varieties and a significant effect of treatment and combination of the varieties factor and treatment factor. Principal component analysis (PCA) showed that under NaCl treatment, MASSINE is the genotype that kept significantly high values of SDW and RDW.

Keywords

• <i>Hordeum vulgare</i>
• salinity
• Moroccan barley