Phosphorus-salinity interaction in radish

Abstract

The use of saline water for irrigation has been a challenge for the researchers and farmers, studies continually being developed to enable the use of lower quality water without interfering with the yield and quality of products. This work was conducted to evaluate the effect of different salinity levels water irrigation and phosphorus doses in radish. It was used an entirely statistical randomized design, in factorial scheme 4 x 4, with three replications. The treatments resulted from the combination of four salinity levels of irrigation water (S₁-0.5; S₂-2.0; S₃-3.5 and S₄-5.0 dS m^-1) with four phosphorus levels (0; 100; 200 and 300 mg dm^-3). The variables evaluated were: number of leaves, leaf area, root fresh and dry weight of roots. The radish responded significantly the interaction between salinity and phosphorus for leaf area, fresh and dry weight of roots, and isolated the factors for number of leaves. Increasing doses of phosphorus reduced the sensitivity of radish culture to salinity up to 3,5 dS m^-1. The management of phosphorus is an alternative to alleviate the effect of salinity in the development of radish.