TY - JOUR
T1 - Soil Salinity Has Species-Specific Effects on the Growth and Nutrient Quality of Four Texas Grasses
AU - Bell, Abigail R.
AU - Smith, Nicholas G.
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was funded by grants from Texas Tech University Honors College, Beta Beta Beta Biological Honors Society, and Sigma Xi to AB. NGS acknowledges additional support from Texas Tech University.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Society for Range Management
PY - 2021/7
Y1 - 2021/7
N2 - Irrigation of farmlands in xeric areas can increase soil salinity, reducing their suitability for food and fiber crops. One way to repurpose these lands is to convert them for use in grazing. To choose the best forage species, it is important to understand the impact of soil salinity on the growth and nutritional quality of potential forage grasses. Here, we grew four perennial C4 grasses: blue grama (Bouteloua gracilis), sideoats grama (Bouteloua curtipendula), little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium), and bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon) in soil treated with four different concentrations (0, 8, 16, and 24 dS/m) of sodium chloride salt (NaCl). We then determined the effects of soil salinity on germination, biomass production, and plant tissue nitrogen content (an indicator of nutritional quality). We found a high degree of variability in salinity responses among species. S. scoparium performed poorly relative to the other species across all metrics. C. dactylon showed high biomass and low sensitivity to soil salinity for each index but had the lowest shoot nitrogen concentration of all species tested. This indicated a tradeoff of tissue quality for quantity. On the other hand, the two Bouteloua species showed opposite results, falling on the shoot quality end of the quantity-quality spectrum and even showing increased nitrogen concentration with increasing soil salinity. Given their complimentary traits, C. dactylon and Bouteloua spp. may be good candidates for interseeding on saline lands. These results indicate that species choice can help mitigate negative impacts of soil salinity on forage production and quality and should be carefully considered by land managers.
AB - Irrigation of farmlands in xeric areas can increase soil salinity, reducing their suitability for food and fiber crops. One way to repurpose these lands is to convert them for use in grazing. To choose the best forage species, it is important to understand the impact of soil salinity on the growth and nutritional quality of potential forage grasses. Here, we grew four perennial C4 grasses: blue grama (Bouteloua gracilis), sideoats grama (Bouteloua curtipendula), little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium), and bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon) in soil treated with four different concentrations (0, 8, 16, and 24 dS/m) of sodium chloride salt (NaCl). We then determined the effects of soil salinity on germination, biomass production, and plant tissue nitrogen content (an indicator of nutritional quality). We found a high degree of variability in salinity responses among species. S. scoparium performed poorly relative to the other species across all metrics. C. dactylon showed high biomass and low sensitivity to soil salinity for each index but had the lowest shoot nitrogen concentration of all species tested. This indicated a tradeoff of tissue quality for quantity. On the other hand, the two Bouteloua species showed opposite results, falling on the shoot quality end of the quantity-quality spectrum and even showing increased nitrogen concentration with increasing soil salinity. Given their complimentary traits, C. dactylon and Bouteloua spp. may be good candidates for interseeding on saline lands. These results indicate that species choice can help mitigate negative impacts of soil salinity on forage production and quality and should be carefully considered by land managers.
KW - Elemental analysis
KW - Forage quality
KW - Grazing
KW - Land management
KW - Nitrogen
KW - Salinity tolerance
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85103983861&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.rama.2021.03.004
DO - 10.1016/j.rama.2021.03.004
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85103983861
VL - 77
SP - 39
EP - 45
JO - Rangeland Ecology and Management
JF - Rangeland Ecology and Management
SN - 1550-7424
ER -