Research Article

Differential Responses of Two Broccoli (Brassica oleracea L. var Italica) Cultivars to Salinity and Nutritional Quality Improvement

Table 1

Dry weight (DW), relative water content (RWC), and leaf area of Parthenon and Naxos cultivars after different salt treatments for 15 days. Values are means ± standard errors (n = 5). Means followed by different letters are significantly different according to Tukey's test at P < 0.05. The significance of the difference between the two cultivars is given according to the Student’s t-test, with *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001; n.s: non-significant.

CultivarNaCl (mM)DW (g plant−1)Root : shootRWC (%)Third leaf area
ShootRootratioShootRoot(cm)

Parthenon03.87 ± 0.23 a0.55 ± 0.03 a0.14 a90.19 ± 0.36 a91.88 ± 0.24 a161.02 ± 8.01 a
303.70 ± 0.32 a0.54 ± 0.03 a0.15 a90.99 ± 0.12 a92.05 ± 0.13 a137.27 ± 11.14 ab
603.19 ± 0.12 a0.43 ± 0.03 ab0.14 a90.90 ± 0.08 a92.14 ± 0.16 a113.03 ± 2.60 bc
902.17 ± 0.20 b0.31 ± 0.02 b0.15 a90.68 ± 0.14 a91.66 ± 0.17 a83.84 ± 5.25 c
Naxos03.07 ± 0.19 a0.49 ± 0.05 a0.16 a90.40 ± 0.18 a91.49 ± 0.27 ab137.50 ± 2.43 a
302.78 ± 0.14 a0.47 ± 0.02 a0.17 a91.43 ± 0.10 ab92.06 ± 0.34 b134.74 ± 8.12 a
601.74 ± 0.14 b0.32 ± 0.02 b0.19 a92.21 ± 0.17 b91.88 ± 0.25 ab105.09 ± 4.16 b
901.41 ± 0.14 b0.26 ± 0.03 b0.19 a91.48 ± 0.10 ab90.97 ± 0.38 a85.17 ± 5.54 b

Significance between the two cultivars0 *n.s.n.s.n.s.n.s. *
30 *n.s.n.s. *n.s.n.s.
60 *** * *n.s.n.s.n.s.
90 *n.s.n.s. **n.s.n.s.