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Beneficial Effects of Silicon (Si) on Sea Barley (Hordeum marinum Huds.) under Salt Stress

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Abstract

Silicon (Si) plays an important role in providing beneficial effects on plant growth and yield, especially under stressful environments such as salinity.

The objective of this work is to study the effects of a fertilizer based on silicon (Na2SiO3 synthesized from Tunisian silica sand) on sea barley (Hordeum marinum Huds.) under salt stress. Due to its forage potentialities, this species presents a very interesting capacity for the rehabilitation of non-productive marginal areas.

Forty-two-day-old H. marinum plants were exposed to three concentrations of Na2SiO3 (0, 1, or 2 mM) in the absence or presence of salt (0 or 150 mM NaCl). The examination of the growth parameters, water status, lipid peroxidation, photosynthetic gas exchange, photosynthetic pigment contents, and chlorophyll fluorescence proved that silicon is a great interest support for the remediation of the deleterious effects of salt stress. Therefore, our fertilizer can be considered as an effective solution to cope with salt stress and promote the development of marginal lands. Taking into consideration its high efficiency and its low production cost, this product can compete with other fertilizers.

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Acknowledgements

This work was conducted in the Laboratory of Extremophile Plants (LPE: Laboratoire des Plantes Extrêmophiles, Tunisia) of the Center of Biotechnology of Borj-Cedria (CBBC: Centre de Biotechnologie de Borj-Cédria, Tunisia), and supported by the Tunisian Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research (LR19CBBC02). Part of the work was also supported by the Tunisian-French PHC MAGHREB 2019 network (Partenariat Hubert CURIEN MAGHREB 2019 no. 41482RL - 19MAG41). We thank the staff of the Center of Biotechnology of Borj-Cedria (CBBC) for technical and administrative supports.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire des Plantes Extrêmophiles (LPE), Centre de Biotechnologie de Borj-Cédria (CBBC), BP, 901, Hammam-Lif, 2050, Tunisie

    Israa Laifa, Nèjia Farhat, Amine Elkhouni, Abderrazak Smaoui, Chedly Abdelly & Walid Zorrig

  2. Laboratoire de Valorisation des Matériaux Utiles (LVMU), Centre National de Recherches en Sciences des Matériaux (CNRSM), Technopole de Borj-Cédria, BP 73, 8027, Soliman, Tunisie

    Mounir Hajji, Adel M’nif & Ahmed Hichem Hamzaoui

  3. Sorbonne Université, CNRS, IRD, INRA, PARIS 7, UPEC, Institut d’Écologie et des Sciences de l’Environnement de Paris, iEES, F-75005, Paris, France

    Arnould Savouré

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  1. Israa Laifa
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  2. Mounir Hajji
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Laifa, I., Hajji, M., Farhat, N. et al. Beneficial Effects of Silicon (Si) on Sea Barley (Hordeum marinum Huds.) under Salt Stress. Silicon 13, 4501–4517 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12633-020-00770-1

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