Open Access

ARTICLE

Tolerance of Traditional Maize Varieties (Zea mays L.) to Salt Stress

Rayane Amaral de Andrade¹, Tayd Dayvison Custódio Peixoto², Miguel Ferreira Neto¹, Antônio Sávio dos Santos¹, Joyce Fernandes de Medeiros¹, Clara Araújo da Silva¹, Mirna Candace Oliveira de Almeida¹, Kariolania Fortunato de Paiva Araújo¹, Ricardo André Rodrigues Filho¹, Kleane Targino Oliveira Pereira¹, Antônio Gustavo de Luna Souto¹, Salvador Barros Torres¹, Francisco Vanies da Silva Sá^3,*

1 Department of Agronomic and Forestry Sciences, Federal Rural University of the Semi-arid—UFERSA, Mossoró, RN, Brazil
2 Center of Agrarian and Biological Sciences, Universidade Estadual Vale do Acaraú—UVA, São Benedito, CE, Brazil
3 Department of Agrarian and Exact Sciences, State University of Paraiba, Sítio Cajueiro, Catolé do Rocha, PB, Brazil

* Corresponding Author: Francisco Vanies da Silva Sá. Email:

(This article belongs to the Special Issue: Abiotic and Biotic Stress Tolerance in Crop)

Phyton-International Journal of Experimental Botany 2026, 95(7), 17 https://doi.org/10.32604/phyton.2026.081266

Received 27 February 2026; Accepted 05 June 2026; Issue published 30 July 2026

Abstract

Managing salinity in irrigation water is essential to ensure water supply for plants, especially in semi-arid regions, where the most readily available water often has high salt content. In this context, the tolerance of traditional maize varieties to salt stress was evaluated using morphological and biochemical parameters at the initial developmental stage. The experiment was conducted in a greenhouse, using polyethylene trays with 200 cells filled with inert coconut fiber-based substrate. The experimental design was completely randomized in a 15 × 2 factorial scheme, with four replicates and 50 seeds per plot, for a total of 120 experimental plots. The factors corresponded to 15 traditional maize varieties and two levels of irrigation water salinity (S1 = 0.5 dS m⁻¹ and S2 = 7.5 dS m⁻¹). Emergence was evaluated from the first to the eighth day after sowing, while growth, phytomass, and biochemical analyses were performed on the eighth day. The results showed that irrigation with saline water affected the development of the native varieties, with growth and biomass accumulation of the aerial part and rootlets being the most impacted variables. The varieties V3—Grão do Sertão, V5—Alho Pipoca, V8—Jaboatão Areia, V6—Pontinha, and V14—Logradouro stood out for their greater tolerance to saline stress, showing reductions of less than 4% in biomass accumulation, maintaining high root dry mass, and high salinity tolerance indices (ITS > 97%). In contrast, V10—Sol da Manhã, V11—Índio, and V12—Jaboatão Remígio were the most sensitive, with significant reductions in SDM and TDM and ITS values close to 80%, in addition to greater impairment of initial growth.

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Keywords

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