Effect of proline foliar spray on growth and productivity of sweet basil (Ocimum basilicum, L.)‎ plant under salinity stress conditions

الملخص EN

Two pot experiments were carried out at Ornamental Nursery, Faculty of Agriculture, Zagazig University, Egypt, during the two consecutive seasons of 2016/2017 and 2017/2018 to study the effect of different saline irrigation water levels (0.0, 1000, 2000 and 3000 ppm), proline concentrations (0.0, 100 and 200 ppm) and their combinations on plant growth, salt resistance index, volatile oil production, photosynthetic pigments and proline content of sweet basil (Ocimum basilicum, L) plant.

Plastic pots in 40 cm diameter filled with 6 kg clay soil were used in this experiment.

This experiment was set up in a split-plot design with three replicates.

The main plots were occupied by saline water levels and the sub plots were entitled to proline concentrations.

The results showed a significant decrease in most studied plant growth parameters (plant height, number of branches/plant and herb and root dry weight/plant), salt resistance index, volatile oil production (volatile oil percentage and volatile oil yield/plant) and photosynthetic pigments (Chlorophyll a and chlorophyll b) with increasing the levels of salinity, but an opposite impact occurred with increasing the proline concentrations.

Also, proline content was decreased as increasing the levels of salinity to reach the maximum values with 3000 ppm salinity level.

However, for the combination among the levels of saline water and proline, the combination treatment (1000 ppm salinity level + 100 ppm proline) showed the highest increment in the growth and productivity of sweet basil plant under Sharkia Governorate conditions.