The purpose of this experiment is to examine the effects of salt on seed germination, plant growth, and flower production. Salt is used all across the US for deicing roads during the winter which can be transported to roadside vegetation. Salinity is known to reduce the growth of glycophytes (salt-sensitive species). This reduction in growth may result from salt effects on dry matter allocation, ion relations, water status, physiological processes, biochemical reactions or a combination of such factors (Seemann 1985). The rate of photosynthetic CO2 fixation of glycophytes typically declines with salt stress, and this decline is generally found to be at least partially a consequence of stomatal closure, although the extent to which such closure limits photosynthesis during salt stress (by reducing the intercellular CO2 concentration) has been less often quantitatively determine (Seemann 1985). The ions that contribute to soil salinity include Cl, SO4, HCO3, Na, Ca, Mg, and rarely, NO3 or K. The salts of these ions occur in highly variable concentrations and proportions (Bernstein 1975). Plants with a higher salinity environment will show less growth than plants growing in a salt free environment. When under salt stress, plants have evolved complex mechanisms allowing for adaption to osmotic and ionic stress caused by high salinity. These mechanisms include osmotic adjustment by accumulation of compatible solutes such as glycinebetine, proline and polyols, and lowering the toxic concentration of ions in the cytoplasm by restriction of Na influx or its sequestration into the vacuole and/or its extrusion (Ghoulam 2002).
Methods.
This study was conducted in a biology lab room at the University of North Dakota on February 18th, 2014. The experiment took place in Styrofoam "quads, " each consisting of four individual cells. In each cell was placed soil of different salinity, two Wisconsin Fast Plant (Brassica rapa) seeds, two fertilizer tablets, and a wick at the bottom of the Styrofoam cell.