Figure 2

Salt priming at seedling stage alters responses of adult plants to salt and drought. (A) Appearance of primed and non-primed (control) plants after 10 days of growth in control conditions. Plants had been subjected to a 24-h treatment with 0 (control) or 50 mM NaCl (primed) at four-leaf seedling stage on agar plates, and subsequently transferred to hydroponics. (B) Shoot and root Na content in primed (pink) and non-primed (control, blue) plants after addition of 80 mM NaCl to the hydroponic solution of plants that had grown for 10 days in control conditions after priming. Means ± SE of four individual plants are shown. Significant differences between primed and non-primed plants are indicated with * for P <0.05 and ** for P <0.01. (C) Appearance of primed and non-primed (control) plants 2 weeks after onset of drought stress. (D) Weight and seize of plants one week after onset of drought stress. Plants subjected to different concentrations of NaCl (0 to 100 mM) during the priming treatment were analyzed. Dry weight (DW) is the horizontally dashed portion of fresh weight (FW) bars (vertically dashed). Each bar is the mean of 6-10 plants ± SE. Significant differences between primed and non-primed plants are indicated with * for P <0.05 and ** for P <0.01. Asterisks apply to both FW and DW.