Salt tolerance in sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum L)

Soil salinity is one of the major abiotic stresses, which pose a severe threat to agriculture in arid and semiarid regions of world. Sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum L) is moderately sensitive to salinity with a threshold value of 1.7 dS m-1. However, wide differences were found in this crop for salinity tolerance. Potassium (K) and silicon (Si) significantly (P ≤0.05) improved growth, yield and juice quality of sugarcane under salt stress. The beneficial effects of K and Si were more pronounced in salt sensitive genotypes than in salt tolerant genotypes. Major mechanisms of K and Si mediated salt tolerance in sugarcane were the reduced uptake of Na+ and its transport to shoot, increased K+ accumulation and maintenance of higher K+/Na+ ratio which is a good indicator to assess salt tolerance.