Abstract
Salicornia brachiata is an annual halophyte belonging to the Chenopodiaceae family and is distributed throughout the world. It is a green, jointed, vascular, flowering, and leafless halophytic plant that carries articulated, succulent stems. The main objectives of this study were to determine the effect of salt stress on growth characteristics, succulence, biochemical parameters, osmotic, and water relations of S. brachiata. The salt stress was induced by irrigating S. brachiata with soaking wastewater of tannery. The leather processing industry or the Tannery is known to be associated with the generation of liquid waste with high total dissolved solids (TDS), in particular, salinity. Consequently, the disposal of the tannery wastewater with high salinity has become a major concern for the tanning industry. This study evaluates the effect of tannery soaking wastewater on S. brachiata, which was grown in pots fed with soaking effluent at varying concentrations of TDS under laboratory conditions for a period of 90 days. Under these conditions, the harvested plants showed a significant decrease in chlorophyll, carbohydrate, lipid contents, fresh and dry weight with the increase in TDS of soaking effluent. However, it has been observed that accumulation of sodium, chloride, protein, and proline increased with an increase in TDS with particular reference to salinity due to osmotic stress. The optimal growth of S. brachiata plants has been observed at 12,500 ppm NaCl. Thus, the study paves a way to remediate the high TDS contaminated soil.