Effect of Chilling and Salinity Stress on Physiological Response of Vicia Faba L. Leaves

An interesting area of research is to constantly monitor plants survival when they encounter a complex range of abiotic stresses due to eminent rapid climate change. Chilling (Ch) and salinity (S) are two challenging threats to plant growth and production especially when they act together. The current study aims to investigate the co-occurrence effects of chilling and salinity in Vicia faba L. Aspani cultivar on photosynthetic performance and ultrastructure of chloroplast. Treatments involved exposure to 3 0 C Ch and 120mM NaCl for 16 h in soil mixture (sand: clay; 2:1) under optimized conditions. Results show that 16 h exposure to either Ch or S significantly reduce photosynthetic rate, stomatal conductance, F v /F m , chl a, chl b, chl a/b, stomatal index %, percentage of opened stomata, and stomatal width. As well, chilled chloroplast ultrastructure revealed chloroplast swelling, ruptured envelope, and shrinked lamellae. Salinity caused more deformation of thylakoid membrane and disorganization of grana structure. Unexpectedly, Ch x S combination illustrates antagonistic effect of Ch over S that reflected on all tested photosynthetic parameters. Interestingly, it seems that Ch might rather be used to mitigate the noxious effect of S on photosynthetic performance of Vicia faba plant at least in our dataset