Purslane diversity, morpho-physiological attributes and salt tolerance

Morpho-physiological attributes in any plant species is very dependable characteristics which may change with time, geographical and environmental conditions. Accession wise significant variation was observed among the evaluated morpho-physiological parameters. Whereas among mineral compositions K content was the highest followed by N, Ca, Mg, Na,P,Fe and Mn respectively. ISSR and EST-SSR marker based molecular characterization has truly confirmed the genetic variability among the collected P. oleracea germplasm collections and revealed 11% and 28% variation among populations with 89% and 72% variation within populations. More or less all the salinity screened 13 purslane accessions were morpho-physiologically affected by the highest salinity levels but very interestingly measured minerals and antioxidant properties were increased at the lower to moderate (8 and 16 dS m-1) salinity and tended to decrease again at the highest (24 and 30 dS m-1) salinity compared to control. It was also found that ornamental purslane contains more antioxidant properties and more tolerant to salinity over common purslane containing more minerals as well.