Effects of salt and water stress on wheat root development

Abstract

The main objective of this paper was to monitor the development of the root system of wheat cultivars under different levels of water and salt stress. The HAS-RSDS root phenotyping platform is a semi-automatic diagnostic system for continuous monitoring with the rhizocolumn system during the developmental stages. The experiment was conducted with fourteen wheat cultivars (Triticum aestivum L) from Serbia (5), Austria (4) and Azerbaijan (5) which were chosen based on different levels of salt and drought tolerance shown in field trials. The experiment was carried out in a greenhouse under four different watering/salt conditions: 1. well watered (60% field capacity) without salt (NaCl) added (control 1); 2. water limited (20% field capacity) and no salt (NaCl ) added (control 2); 3. well watered (60% field capacity) and saline conditions (0.2% NaCl) and 4. water limited (20% field capacity) and saline conditions (0.2% NaCl).