Zea mays L. and Salinity

Establishment of plant-lets at premature growth phase of crop plants one of the most considerable determinants of high yield is harshly affected by salt salinity. In this view germination experiment in Petri dishes and sand culture experiment in plastic pots was completed in the main research area of Botany Department Lalazar Colony, U.A. Faisalabad. For this purpose, three maize lines viz. (EV-77, EV-78 and MS-61) were used with two levels of NaCl salt i.e. (0 mM and 150 mM). On the basis of the results it was concluded that all the 3 maize behaved non-significantly with respective to different experimental variables (shoot fresh weight (g), shoot dry weight (g), root fresh weight (g), root dry weight (g), relative water content, roots K+, Na+, chl. a, chl. b, chl. a/b, total chl. and carotenoids)under salinity conditions. On the other hand, all the 3 maize behaved significantly with respective to number of leaves, plant height (cm),leaf area,inorganic ion determination (mg/g) dry weight of the K+, Na+ and Ca2+ in shoot and leaves, Ca2+ in roots and germination. It was also observed that the imposition of salt stress caused significantly (p¿ 0.001) reduction in all these 3 maiz.