• D.DHANASEKARAN
• CT.SATHAPPAN
• S.RAMESHKUMAR
• S.MADHAVAN
• S.BABU

Salinity is of rising importance in landscaping because of the increase in green spaces in the urban environment where scarcity of water has led to the reuse of waste waters for irrigation. Due to the rapid increasing populations and industrialization in many parts of the world, the demand for fresh water supply is increasing for irrigating ornamentals in gardens. On other hand it is noted that the availability of fresh water is meager in expansion of gardening in all parts of the country. In many gardens, farm ponds are utilized for irrigation without analyzing the quality of the water. A potential problem of using these pond waters are salt levels, which are detrimental to sensitive plants if not managed properly. Therefore, identifying salt-sensitive plant species and categorizing salt tolerance of commonly used landscape plants may aid the selection of appropriate species for landscapes where alternative sources of water are used for irrigation. Keeping this in mind an experiment was laid out in completely randomized design with three replications. Salinity was induced by adding NaCl of four different concentrations viz., 0.4 , 0.8, 1.2 and 1.6 % and was irrigated on alternative days for two ornamental flowering annuals viz., Zinnia and Petunia. Twenty days old seedlings were subjected to treatments as per the schedule with a control. Phenological observations viz., plant height, number of branches, number of leaves, earliness in flowering, number of flowers, flower diameter are observed at Initial, 40 and 55 days after sowing. From the results, it was found that suppression of plant growth increases with the increase in NaCl concentration. The plants treated with NaCl had attained an earlier blooming upto 1.2% and with the increased salinity levels.

ornamentals salinity tolerance

"NaCl- INDUCED PRE-CONDITIONING OF ORNAMENTAL PLANTS VIZ.,ZINNIA AND PETUNIA FOR SALINITY TOLERANCE", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 5, page no.52-56, May-2019, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1905Q05.pdf

"NaCl- INDUCED PRE-CONDITIONING OF ORNAMENTAL PLANTS VIZ.,ZINNIA AND PETUNIA FOR SALINITY TOLERANCE", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 5, page no. pp52-56, May-2019, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1905Q05.pdf