Abstract: Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) is one of the major
vegetable crops that are grown world –wide because of its economic
importance. This experiment investigated the effect of local sands
(River Base, Al-Ekader and Karbala) on number and total weight of
minitubers. Statistical analysis revealed that there were no significant
differences among sand cultures in number of stem/plant, chlorophyll
index and tubers dry weight. River Base sand had the highest plant
height (74.9 cm), leaf number/plant number (39.3), leaf area (84.4
dcm2⁄plant), dry weight/plant (26.31), tubers number/plant (8.5),
tubers weight/plant (635.53 gm) and potato tuber yields/trove (28.60
kg), whereas the Karbala sand had lower performance. All the
characters had positive and significant correlation with yields except
the traits number of stem and tuber dry weight.
Abstract: This study carried out in order to investigate the
effects of salinity on carbon isotope discrimination (Δ) of shoots and
roots of four sugar beet cultivars (cv) including Madison (British
origin) and three Iranian culivars (7233-P12, 7233-P21 and 7233-P29).
Plants were grown in sand culture medium in greenhouse conditions.
Plants irrigated with saline water (tap water as control, 50 mM, 150
mM, 250 mM and 350 mM of NaCl + CaCl2 in 5 to 1 molar ratio)
from 4 leaves stage for 16 weeks. Carbon isotope discrimination
significantly decreased with increasing salinity. Significant
differences of Δ between shoot and root were observed in all cvs and
all levels of salinity. Madison cv showed lower Δ in shoot and root
than other three cvs at all levels of salinity expect control, but cv
7233-P29 had significantly higher Δ values at saline conditions of 150
mM and above. Therefore, Δ might be applicable, as a useful tool, for
study of salinity tolerance of sugar beet genotypes.