Effect of salt stress on leaf proline accumulation and chlorophyll content of some fruit species [electronic resource].

Includes references.

Proline, chlorophyll- a, b and total chlorophyll contents in the leaves of one- year- old uniform seedlings of "Nibaly'' olive, "Safida" guava, "Balady'' citron, "Banzahir" lime and "Timour" mango were studied in glasshouse trial in 1998/1999 and 1999/2000 seasons at salinity of 0, 25, 50 and 100 m.mol NaCl in the irrigation water. It was noticed that the leaves of citron seedlings contained the highest level of proline (7.64 mg/g) followed by lime (6.17 mg/g), mango (4.6 mg/ g), guava (2.36 mg/g) and olive seedlings which had the lowest level of leaf proline content (1.57 mg/g). Compared with controls, increasing NaCl concentration in the irrigation water induced significanHy higher increases in the leaf proline content al the different fruit species. Based on the results, it is evident that the changes in proline levels have an inverse relationship with the salt tolerance. Therefore, the relative salt tolerance may be in the following descending order: olive, guava, mango, lime and citron. Under salinization, the levels al chlorophyll-a, b and total chlorophyll in the different fruit species seedlings were progressively decreased with increasing NaCl concentration in the irrigation water as compared with the control. In addibon, the leaf chlorophyll content was significantly differed between the experimental fruit species under salinity treatments.

Summary in Arabic.

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