Revisiting the Salinity Tolerance of Crapemyrtles (Lagerstroemia spp.)

Raul I. Cabrera

doi:10.48044/jauf.2009.023

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Figure 1.
Average electrical conductivity (EC) and chloride concentration (C) in leachates collected from containerized plants of three crapemyrtle (Lagerstroemia) cultivars irrigated with increasing levels of NaCl salinity. Data points are means ± standard errors of 27 leachate samples.
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Figure 2.
Relative total (A) and root (B) dry weights, shoot to root ratio (C), relative growth index (D), leaf chlorophyll (SPAD) index (E) and foliage salt burn ratings (F) of three crapemyrtle (Lagerstroemia) cultivars irrigated with increasing levels of NaCl salinity. Data points are means ± standard errors of 6 plants. The parameters for the fitted regression lines are shown in Table 2.
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Figure 3.
Relationships between relative whole plant dry weights (A, C) and foliage salt burn ratings (B, D) and leaf sodium and chloride concentrations in three crapemyrtle (Lagerstroemia) cultivars irrigated with increasing levels of NaCl salinity. Each data point represents a single plant. The parameters for the fitted regression lines are shown in Table 2.

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Table 1.

Equations of regressions lines fitted to relative plant growth and quality responses, and their relationships with leaf Na and Cl concentrations, in three crapemyrtle (Lagerstroemid) cultivars subjected to increasing NaCl stress. Data used in the regression procedures are presented in Figure 2 and Figure 3.

Response Variable	‘Pink Lace’	‘Natchez’			‘Basham’s Party Pink’
Response Variable	Growth and quality responses to applied NaCl^{^z}
Relative plant DW^{^y}		For all cultivars,	Y = 84.5 − 3.28X + 0.06X²	R² = 0.89
Relative root DW	Y = 76.2 − 1.35X + 0.01X²	R² = 0.92	Y = 79.6 − 4.85X + 0.12X²	R² = 0.98	Y = 91.6 − 5.29X + 0.12X²	R² = 0.86
Shoot: root ratio	Y = 2.61 + 0.02X − 0.003X²	R² = 0.94	Y = 3.94 + 0.09X − 0.004X²	R² = 0.75	Y = 2.29 + 0.08X − 0.002X²	R² = 0.70
Relative growth index	Y = 87.5 − 0.20X − 0.01X²	R² = 0.96	Y = 89.6 − 0.98X + 0.01X²	R² = 0.81	Y = 88.3 − 1.98X + 0.05X²	R² = 0.76
Chlorophyll index (SPAD)	Y = 70.1 − 0.94X − 0.01X²	R² = 0.99	Y = 55.1 − 0.76X − 0.01X²	R² = 0.96	Y = 58.3 + 0.27X − 0.01X²	R² = 0.36
Salt burn rating	Y = 0.465 + 0.166X	R² = 0.99	Y = 0.179 + 0.062X	R² = 0.99	Y = 0.064 + 0.038X	R² = 0.99
Relative plant DW and salt burn relationship to leaf Na
Relative plant DW	For all cultivars, Y = 81.9 − 0.021X + 2.5x10⁻⁶ X² R² = 0.68
Salt burn rating	Y = 0.403 + 0.0018X − 1.8x10⁻⁷X² R² = 0.90		Y = 0.222 + 0.0004X − 2.2x10⁻⁸X² R² = 0.91		Y = 0.017 + 0.0005X − 4.5x10⁻⁸X² R² = 0.77
Relative plant DW and salt burn relationship to leaf Cl
Relative plant DW	For all cultivars, Y = 16.8 + 240.1X − 240.7X² + 83.4X³ − 9.6X⁴ R² = 0.79
Salt burn rating	Y = 0.210 − 1.03X + 1.17X² R² = 0.69		Y = 0.102 + 0.10X + 0.12X² R² = 0.81		Y = 0.249 − 0.68X + 0.51X² R² = 0.65

↵^zFor equations: Y corresponds to the listed response (dependent) variable, while X denotes applied NaCl concentration or Leaf Na or Cl concentration (independent variables).
↵^yDW = Dry weight.

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Table 2.

Concentration of selected minerals in leaves of three crapemyrtle (Lagerstroemia) cultivars subjected to increasing salinity stress. The plants were subjected to the salinity treatments over a 15 week experimental period.

Independent Variable	N^{^z}	P	K	Ca	Mg	Fe	Mn	Na	Cl
Independent Variable	(%)					(mg kg⁻¹)			(%)
Cultivar^{^y}
‘Pink Lace’	2.70 a	0.23 a	1.34 b	2.42 a	0.63 b	119 a	566 a	1368 b	1.60 b
‘Natchez’	2.41 b	0.25 a	1.51 a	1.73 b	0.68 a	110 b	549 a	1770 a	1.77 a
‘Basham’s Party Pink’	---	0.19 b	1.17 c	1.70 b	0.53 c	103 b	506 a	1155 b	1.39 c
NaCl Concentration
0 mM	2.50	0.21	1.28	2.03	0.63	102	520	179	0.63
3 mM	2.48	0.21	1.36	1.94	0.63	101	520	295	1.27
6 mM	2.48	0.22	1.36	2.01	0.62	116	511	479	1.61
12 mM	2.56	0.23	1.36	1.97	0.61	118	620	1921	2.19
24 mM	2.76	0.25	1.35	1.79	0.57	117	532	4283	2.23
ANOVA^{^x}
Cultivar (CV)	***	***	***	***	***	**	NS	**	***
Salt Concentration (SC)	*	***	NS	NS	*	**	NS	***	***
CV*SC	**	*	NS	**	NS	NS	NS	**	***

↵^zLeaf N concentration data was only available for two cultivars, and thus statistical analysis of data for this element applies only to those two cultivars.
↵^yMean separation of cultivar main effects by Duncan’s LSD (0.05). Mean values having similar letters are not significantly different from each other.
↵^xAnalysis of variance for main effects (CV, SC) and interaction (CV*SC). NS = not significantly different; *, **, and *** indicate significance at P ≤ 0.05, P ≤ 0.01, and P ≤ 0.001, respectively.