Salt tolerance of purple lovegrass(Eragrostis spectabilis)
In this study, a pot experiment was conducted to analyze the effect of seawater on purple lovegrass using quartz sand as a substrate. The results showed that biomass and leaf width of purple lovegrass slightly increased with a low concentration of seawater and a decrease was observed with an increase of salt concentration in the irrigation water. However, the relative content of chlorophyll and the tiller number showed a slight decrease trend with the irrigation treatment. Compared to the control group, there was a downward trend on the root-shoot ratio with a significant difference(P0.01). The analysis also showed a significantly negative correlation between salt ions(Na+, Cl-) and aboveground biomass. Contents of Na+ and Cl- in the underground biomass presented an exponential relationship. K+ content in treatment groups had no obvious difference. Moreover, purple lovegrass roots selectively translocated salt ions to the above ground part. It preferred to K+ absorption with no seawater addition and Na+ absorption increased, but K+ uptake was restrained with the increasing seawater concentration.