Laboratory experiments were conducted to investigate the effect of different salinity levels of soil extractions on maize during the germination and early growth stages. The study was carried out at the Department of Arid Land Agriculture, King Abdulaziz University, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia during the year 2014. The maize cultivars used in the study were Single Hybrid 13 Bashair (white grain) and Tri Hybrid 352 (yellow grain) cvs. The salinity levels of soil extraction were 3.72, 6.23, 10.02 and 14.02, mS/cm, while distilled water was used as a control. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed that there were significant differences (P < 0.05) among salinity levels, maize cultivars and interaction effects for all investigated traits. Salt concentration had a significant effect on all measured traits. The mean values for germination (%), salinity tolerance index and seed vigor index of the white and yellow cultivars were 74 and 76 %, 66.765 and 70.492, and 4204.0 and 4169.5 respectively. There was no significant difference at (p <0.05) in all measured traits between the two cultivars except on root length, in which white grain cultivar was 5.63 cm, while the yellow grain cultivar was 4.94 cm.

Author Name: Mohammed Awad

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Keywords: Maize, salinity, germination, arid land

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EISSN: 2312-7945

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