Growth Responses of Plantago ovata L. to Varying Levels of NaCl

The increasing human population demands more food, shelter and resources. However, it is not possible to bring arable lands under cultivation for aromatic and medicinal plants. The demand for medicinal drugs including ispaghol (Plantago ovata) is not only high but is also growing worldwide. The marginal, including salt-affected lands could be successfully utilized for the cultivation of non-conventional crops because these saline soils are not suitable for better vegetation cover due to poor physical properties and excess Na+ concentration. Salinity being a global problem and a major constraint on food production worldwide affects plant growth and crop productivity and contributes to increased poverty in salt-affected areas. Among deleterious effects of high salt concentrations are ionic and osmotic imbalances, oxidative stress and also reduced photosynthetic capacity of plants. Assessing mechanism of salt tolerance in a crop species will ultimately help in devising a strategy to improve crop salt tolerance. The present study was conducted to see how and up to what extent varying degree of salinity stress affects the medicinally important non-conventional crop Plantago ovata (Ispaghol). From the results it is clear that increasing levels of NaCl in the growth medium reduced the growth of P .ovata. However, ANOVA revealed significant growth reduction at the highest salinity level (180 mM). The findings suggest that Plantago ovata might tolerate moderate levels of salinity. It can be tried for cultivation on marginal salted soils.