Effects of salinity on plants
Definition:
Salinity is the state of high salt concentration or it can be define as the presence of minerals at high levels in water and soil. For example, there are some cations: Na, K, Mg, Ca and anions: NO3, HCO3, SO4, Cl, which accumulates in soil at high concentration and cause salinity in that soil.
Introduction:
Salinity is major a biotic factor that reduce growth and yield below optimum level. Salinity is the global issue that results in osmotic stress and reduction in plant growth. In Pakistan, out of 20 million hectares of agriculture land 6.67 million hectares are salt affected. More than 800 million hectares of land throughout the world are salt affected which is over than 6% of total land area in the whole world, therefore it is a serious issue.
Figure 1: Percentage of land affected by salinity http//www.intechpen.com
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Its pH is less than 8.5. Saline .soil is covered with white incursion therefore it is called white alkali .It contains sulphates and chlorides of sodium, potassium and magnesium.
Figure 2: Saline Soil as white alkali http://permaculturenews.org
Effects of High Salinity on plants:
High concentration of salts dissolved in soil water is harmful to plants. Soil salinity affects plants mainly in three ways:
1. Physiological affects
2. Ion toxicity
3. Nutrients imbalance
Physiological Effects:
Salinity stress cause changes in various physiological and metabolic processes which just depend on severity and duration of the stress. Salinity effects physiological and biochemical processes including plant growth, seed germination, water uptake, vegetative growth, reproductive development and yield.
1. Effect on
Water is the most relied upon resource on earth and if it disappeared life could not and would not exist on this planet. So if one of our main sources of water in South Australia, The Murray Darling-Basin, becomes unusable then we would need to find the problem and do everything possible to stop it or counteract it. This report investigates on salinity in the Murray Darling-Basin, using the issue question “Is there enough being done to counteract the effects of salinity in the Murray?” as the focus. Salinity is a key significant environmental challenge which the Murray faces and if left unmanaged it could cause serious implications for water quality, plant growth, biodiversity, land productivity, infrastructure and could lead to a loss of a water source that’s critical to human needs. In this investigation five different aspects of this salinity issue are presented and these aspects include what Salinity is and how it has become an issue, what the effects are, how salinity affects the rest of Australia, what can be done and is anyone doing anything and finally what the visions are for the future of the Murray and its salinity levels.
2) (reasoning) In Source B it talks about brackish water, water that has salt but is still drinkable and usable for growing crops, but it's not the best for it.
Use of pesticides & other fertilizers infuse nitrogen oxide into the water bodies acidifying the water which kills the plants and aquatic animals living in
Type of Alkali - This is the same as the type of acid but instead the
Three substances mainly make fertilisers: nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium. Their percentage in the solution will change the effectiveness on a determinate plant; for example is recommended to use high proportion of nitrogen fertilizers during the spring growth of spurts. The fertilisers can be spitted in two categories: organic that contains a low level of nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium and aren’t toxic to the environment and synthetic that are made by a high concentration of the three substances and can be corrosive to the environment if are overused.
Tampa Bay Water is a seawater desalination plant located in Tampa, Florida. Their method of desalination of ocean water or brackish groundwater is another method to obtaining water from fresh surfaces or groundwater sources. This could be used to replace the need for a water supply dam. There are several different technologies that exist to remove salt and other impurities from ocean water. The two most commonly used methods are thermal distillation and desalination. Thermal distillation copies the natural water cycle by using heat to create a vapor that is converted into freshwater. Desalination is a process that removes some amount of salt and other minerals from saline water. The traditional process used is vacuum distillation, which boils water at less than atmospheric pressure making the water sit at a much lower temperature than normal. This is due to the fact that the boiling of liquid occurs when the vapor pressure equals the outside pressure and vapor pressure increases with temperature. Due to the reduced temperature, low-temperature "waste" heat from electrical power generation or industrial processes can be used. The processes use membranes to desalinate, by applying standard reverse osmosis technology. These membrane processes use semi-permeable membranes and pressure to separate salts from water.
Aquatic plants that are sensitive to high levels of salt are likely to die because the salt absorbs the water, causing plant cells to shrivel and die (Gould). When amphibians and other semi-aquatic freshwater organisms swim in salty water they too shrivel up and die, similar to a slug covered in salt (Siegel). Salt running into bodies of water is disrupting the food chain and killing thousands of organisms every day. Sodium chloride is the effective ingredient in both table salt and road salt (Rastogi). The only difference is that road salt is unfiltered and unpurified.
The another devastating abiotic stress which is considered to be highly responsible worldwide for decreasing yield and quality of crop productivity is drought (Lambers et al. 2008 ; Moghadam et al .,2011; Mohsen Pourgholam et al.,2013 ; M. Farooq et al., 2012; Abolhasani and Saeidi, 2004 ; Monjezi et al., 2013).It harms plant growth and development and reduces crop growth rate and also affects biomass accumulation. Generally, in crop plants drought severely affects the cell division and expansion, elongation of root, leaf size, proliferation of root and inhibition of shoot growth (Sharp & Davies 1989; Spollen et al.,1993;Yamaguchi et al.,2010). Furthermore ,it also badly hampers all kinds of plant functions and physiological and biochemical traits such as mineral elements, carbohydrates, free radicals, ions, hormones, lipids, and nucleic acids (HongBo et al., 2005; Yasar et al., ; Moghadam et al .,2011,Mohsen Pourgholam et al,2013) .The transportation of nutrients from the roots to the stem severely get affected by drought as the rate of transpiration is reduced and damage of active transport and membrane permeability take place (Viets, 1972; Alam, 1999; Yasar et al ). Simultaneously, due to decrease in soil moisture, problem occurs with the low distribution of absorbed nutrients by the plant roots in the soil (Alam, 1999; Yasar et al ). More importantly, drought leads to rise in generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) due to energy accumulation in stress condition of plants (Smirnoff 1993; Asada 2006; Waraich et al.,2011).Drought diminishes photosynthetic carbon fixation primarily through restraining the entrance of CO2 into the leaf or by reducing metabolism (Smirnoff 1993; Loggini et al., 1999; Ap...
The properties of acid and base determine the pH a salt. Basic salt has the equivalence point above 7 (pH(HCOONa)=8.6) Neutral solution Acidic salt associates below 7 (pH (NH4Cl)=6.45). And neutral salt such as NaCl has equivalence point at 7.
... incredibly relevant to today world. Brine shrimps are also used as test subjects due to their incredible resilience, and are also sold as a novelty item “sea monkeys.” Unfortunately, these unique critters have become threatened in some cases as water is diverted away (for human use) from high saline environments inhabited by brine shrimp. As a result, the water becomes more saline and usually results in a rising pH which can endanger the shrimps. The information provided in these two studies shows the need, function, means, and genetic explanation for osmoregulation. As humans continue to impact the environment, changing salinity will result in changing need for osmoregulation, and as a result, future scientists will need to explore how organisms can react to the need to osmoregulate more or less and how that will impact organism populations’ survival as a whole.
Aquaponics is the combination of both aquaculture, which is fish farming, and hydroponics, which is farming without the use of soil. In aquaponics, plants form a symbiotic relationship with fish allowing for fish to get nutrients from plants, and plants get a supply clean water from the fish. With aquaponics, the plants and fish can grow faster than average due to naturally fortified water from the fish, and nutrient-rich water from the plants. Aquaponics also allows for two types of farming happening at the same time, fish and plants, if the system the fish are in is large enough. Furthermore, aquaponics allows for plants to grow anywhere, without arable land. Many countries are not able to meet the demand for food because of the climate or
The most prevalent source of agricultural water pollution is soil that is washed off of fields. These fields have been treated with fertilizers and pesticides, which over time have accumulated heavy metals that are then transferred to lakes and streams. The excess particles cloud the water blocking vital oxygen and sun for the aquatic plants.
What is soil salinity? Salinity is simply the amount of salts contained in the soil, which is estimated by measuring the electrical conductivity of a removed soil solution. An electrical device can easily measure the amount of salt contained in the soil. In millimhos/cm or micromhos/cm, a salt concentration of a gram per litre is about 1.5 millimhos/cm. Does soil salinity affect plant growth?
Plant nutrition is area of plant biology that is of the utmost importance for the proliferation of plants. Without proper nutrition, plants would simply cease to exist unless drastic alterations were made. There are certain elements that are required for the plant to grow and reproduce; these elements are known as essential elements. There are three requirements of an essential element: the element must be required for the completion of the plant’s life cycle, the element must not be replaceable by another element in whole, and finally the element must be direction involved in the metabolism of the plant. Chemical compounds that are involved in proper nutrition have been designated as nutrients, and further classified as macronutrients and micronutrients. Macronutrients are needed for growth, metabolism, and many other functions, but are designated as “macro” because they are required in larger amounts. Macronutrients include carbohydrates, proteins, and fat molecules. Micronutrients have a much wider function that depends on the exact micronutrient. Micronutrients are designated as so because they are needed in much smaller amounts when compared to macronutrients. Examples of micronutrients include vitamins and minerals.
Urbanization: Soil is considered as water reservoir. Urbanization acts in creating amount of impermeable surface due to construction of buildings, roads, drainage, sewage, flood relief channel etc. It reduces the amount of infiltration and percolation. Water tends to experiment the runoff process rather than infiltration. This contributes to increase in