Effect of sodium chloride on growth and morphological responses of oil palm callus cv. SUP-PSU 1

Abstract

Oil palm is an oil crop that produces the highest oil yield throughout the year. Due to frequent application of fertilizer results in severe salinity of planting areas. Therefore, the objective of this research was to study the effect of different concentrations of sodium chloride (NaCl) on growth and development of callus from treating cell in liquid OPCM supplemented with different concentrations of NaCl (0, 50, 100, 150, 200, 300 and 400 mM) in combination with 0.1 mg/l dicamba and 200 mg/l ascorbic acid for 4, 8 and 12 weeks. The results showed that treating cells for 8 weeks in 100 mM NaCl started to induce root-like structure (RLS) on the surface of calli. All concentrations of NaCl promoted those structures on calli when treated for 12 weeks. A number of RLS increased when concentration of NaCl increased. Moreover, increasing concentrations of NaCl decreased average number of nodules but increased average number of brown nodules and browning rate. However, the growth of the calli decreased when concentrations of NaCl increased, especially at concentrations higher than 200 mM. This result suggests that cells of oil palm in vitro could not stand to NaCl at concentration higher than 200 mM.