Abiotic stresses induce ill effects on crop growth and development. Soil salinity is the major abiotic stress in agriculture globally since it affects almost all plant functions. Silicon (Si) plays a great role in alleviating salinity stress. Therefore, a pot experiment was conducted at the net house of Patuakhali Science and Technology University, Bangladesh during Rabi (dry) season 2019 to evaluate the effect of Si in improving rice growth under salt stress condition. The experiment was laid out in two factor randomized complete block design replicated thrice. The first factor was salinity concentration having two levels: 0 and 6 dS/m salinity and the second factor were four levels of Si: 0, 2, 4 and 8 milimolar. The sources of salt and Si were NaCl and silicic acid, respectively. Salinity stress had significant impact on growth parameters of rice. Results revealed that salinity reduced the plant height, number of tillers, and fresh weight of shoot and root by about 17%, 28%, 39% and 54%, respectively. At both 0 and 6dS/m salinity condition; application of Si at 2, 4 and 8 mM progressively improved all the growth parameters over Si control. Application of Si at 8 mM silicon had the highest performance with respect to improvement in growth and development of rice. Therefore, application of Si should be recommended in rice cultivation both in non-saline as well as saline condition to alleviate the ill impact of salt stress.
Key words: Chlorophyll, rice, silicon, salinity
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