Effect of salt stress on germination and early seedling growth of Nigella sativa L.

The environmental stress such as salinity of soil or water is serious difficult for medical plants and field crops in further areas of the world, especially arid and semiarid regions. In order to study salinity stress on Nigella sativa L. germination indices, an experiment as completely randomized design was conducted under controlled conditions (germinator) with three replications in Birjand Branch of Islamic Azad University, Birjand, Iran in 2011. To create salinity stress, sodium chloride (NaCl) at five levels of 0 (as control), 2, 4, 6 and 8 ds m-1 were used. Effect of salt levels on investigated traits was significant. Means comparison for these traits showed that the application of 8 ds m-1 salinity resulted in the loss of seedling length, seedling weight, germination percentage, germination rate and seed viability index of Nigella sativa L. seeds by 21, 33.3, 13.2, 32.7 and 31.3% respectively, as compared to control treatment (0 ds m-1 salinity). In total, it can be concluded that salinity stress significantly decreased germination and growth parameters of seedlings of Nigella sativa L.