Assessment of morphological,antioxidant,biochemical and ionic responses of salttolerant and salt-sensitive okra (abelmoschus esculentus) under saline regime

A pot experiment was executed with the objective to observe the response of four okra cultivars under saline regime at biochemical,antioxidant and ionic levels. sand culture was employed with hoagland solution as nutrient medium to replenish the nutrient requirement of emerging seedlings of two salt-tolerant (oh-713 and oh- 139) and two salt-sensitive (sitara-9101 and okra-7080) cultivars. twenty days old seedlings were subjected to various salt concentrations i.e. 0,2,4,6 and 8 dsm-1). salinity imposed severe reduction in morphological attributes including shoot length,plant fresh weight and leaf area,being more drastic in salt-sensitive cultivars. high contents of chlorophyll,proline and glycine betaine were observed in salt-tolerant cultivars as compared to salt-sensitive ones. enhancement in salt stress conferred an ascending trend in terms of antioxidants like superoxide dismutase (sod),peroxidase (pod) and catalase (cat) in all the tested okra cultivars. however the tolerant okra cultivars exhibited the highest levels of these antioxidant enzymes. a synergistic relationship was obvious between glycine betaine and antioxidant enzymes. the ionic response of okra cultivars under salt stress revealed that tolerant cultivars restricted sodium and chloride ions in their roots so less sodium and chloride contents were noted in the leaves of salt-tolerant cultivars.