Tolerance of passion fruit species under salt stress

This study aimed to evaluate the growth of passion fruit seedlings under different levels of irrigation water salinity, in an experiment conducted in a protected environment. The treatments were distributed in a completely randomized design, in a 5 x 3 factorial scheme, referring to five levels of irrigation water salinity: 0.3, 1.4, 2.5, 3.6 and 4.7 dS m-1 and three species of Passiflora: gibertii, cincinnata and edulis cv. ‘Gigante Amarelo’, with four replicates, analyzed for plant height, stem diameter, dry matter of root, shoot and total. The absolute and relative growth rates of passion fruit species are affected by irrigation water salinity. Stem diameter is the variable most sensitive to the increase in irrigation water salinity. For satisfactory growth, seedlings of P. gibertii, P. edulis and P. cincinnata can be irrigated with waters of up to 3.69, 2.14 and 1.87 dS m-1, respectively. Among the studied species, Passiflora cincinnata is considered as moderately tolerant to salinity while the Passiflora gibertii and Passiflora edulis are tolerant to salinity.