Effect of MgCl2 on Germination, Growth and Biomass Allocation of the Radish CV. "Cherry Belle"
Abstract
Problem statement: To determine the effect of MgCl2 on radish (Raphanus sativus), plants were grown in controlled environmental growth chambers and given one of three watering treatments; 0.01, 0.1 and 0 M (control) MgCl2. Approach: At high concentrations (0.1 M), MgCl2 was toxic resulting in very low (44%) germination rates and the subsequent death of all but three undersized plants over the 28 day growth period. Results: At lower concentrations (0.01 M), MgCl2 resulted in enhanced germination rates (5.55%) and a mass increase (39.54%) over the control. Conclusion/Recommendations: While low concentrations of MgCl2 resulted in an increase in total biomass, biomass allocation was shifted largely from roots to shoots (55.88% higher root/shoot ratio in the control).
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3844/ajessp.2011.132.135
Copyright: © 2011 William Brandenburg and Catherine Kleier. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
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Keywords
- Magnesium chloride
- environmental growth chambers
- biomass allocation
- common deicing salt
- radish plants
- root intensive plant
- road deicer
- soil toxicity
- cherry belle
- Analysis Of Variance (ANOVA)