Date of Award

2017

Publisher

North Dakota State University

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Awarded

Master of Science (MS)

Program

Plant Sciences

Department

Plant Sciences

College

Agriculture, Food Systems and Natural Resources

Faculty Advisor

Zhang, Qi

Description

Turfgrass growth, development, and functionality are adversely affected by high soil salinity. Most of the previous salinity tolerance research involved NaCl-induced saline conditions. However, there are regions such as California and North Dakota where the predominant cation and anion is Mg2+ and SO42-, respectively. The objective of this research was to determine the salinity tolerance of ‘Kenblue’ and ‘Moonlight’ Kentucky bluegrass as affected by NaCl, Na2SO4, MgCl2, and MgSO4 at four saline levels at early growth and vegetative stages. The results showed that shoot and root dry weight, root length, and turfgrass performance decreased with increasing salinity levels at both stages. Specific root length increased during saline exposure at the germination and seedling stage but decreased at the vegetative growth stage. The plants subjected to the Na2SO4 and MgSO4 treatments performed better than those under the NaCl and MgCl2 treatments when data were pooled across cultivars and salt concentrations.

Rights

NDSU policy 190.6.2

Rights Link

https://www.ndsu.edu/fileadmin/policy/190.pdf

Handle Identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/10365/28198

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