Fungal endophytes alleviate salt stress in wheat in terms of growth, ion homeostasis and osmoregulation.

Aims: This study examined the ability of isolated endophytic fungi to confer salt stress tolerance on wheat.

Methods And Results: Tolerance of pot-grown wheat in greenhouse to salt stress was measured by estimating emergence rate, growth, relative water content, photosynthetic pigments biosynthesis, Na and K contents, as well as sugar and proline levels under salt stress in inoculated wheat seedlings. Chaetomium coarctatum (66·7%) and Alternaria chlamydospora (56·7%) improved wheat seedling emergence under moderate salinity (2·5 dS m ) compared to noninoculated plant (50%).

Combined effect of Cr-toxicity and temperature rise on physiological and biochemical responses of Atriplex halimus L.

An experiment was conducted to evaluate the combined effect of temperature (26 and 30 °C) and Cr toxicity (0, 100 and 1000 μM Cr) on growth, photosynthesis, water content, Cr and nutrients uptake and translocation. The role of antioxidative enzyme towards stresses tolerance was also investigated. Results showed that the maximum relative growth rate and leaf area per plant of Atriplex halimus L.

Physiological and biochemical mechanisms preventing Cd-toxicity in the hyperaccumulator Atriplex halimus L.

The xero-halophyte Atriplex halimus L., recently described as Cd-hyperaccumulator, was examined to determine Cd toxicity threshold and the physiological mechanisms involved in Cd tolerance. An experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of cadmium from 0 to 1350 μM on chlorophyll fluorescence parameters, gas exchange, photosynthetic pigment concentrations and antioxidative enzyme activities of A.