Saline Water Irrigation of Quinoa and Chickpea: Seedling Rate, Stomatal Conductance and Yield Responses

A pot experiment was conducted in the south of Morocco to evaluate the response of chickpea and quinoa to different irrigation water salinity treatments (1, 4, 7 and 10 dS m(-1) for chickpea and 1, 10, 20 and 30dSm(-1) for quinoa). Increasing salinity affected significantly (P<0.05) seedling rate and height and caused delay and reduction in seed emergence, quinoa was shown to be more resistant than chickpea. Dry biomass, seed yield, harvest index and crop water productivity were affected significantly (P<0.05) by salinity where increasing salinity level led to decrease in dry biomass, root volume and seed yield for both quinoa and chickpea while increasing salinity resulted in increase - in the case of quinoa - and decrease - in the case of chickpea - in harvest index and crop water productivity. Na+ and Na+/K+ ratio increased with increasing irrigation water salinity, while K+ content decreased - in the case of quinoa - and increased - in the case of chickpea - with increasing salinity. Through this study, it was demonstrated that the salinity threshold in which seedling starts to be affected by salinity was equal to 2 and 8dSm(-1) for chickpea and quinoa, respectively. Quinoa was shown to be more resistant to salinity of all investigated parameters.