10682 10.30848/PJB2022-5(32) <p> Effect of salt stress on growth and biochemical properties of little millet (<em>Panicum miliare </em>L<em>.</em>)</p> Muhammad Siddique Lashari, Bakht-Un-Nisa Mangan, Inayatullah Rajpar, Muhram Ali, Majid Sikandar Jogi and Tanveer Ali Sial <p style="margin-left:.25in;"> The major proportion of chloride salts have been observed in the saline soils of Pakistan in the forms of chlorides of Na⁺, Ca²⁺ and Mg²⁺. The saline soils of coastal areas have plenty of chloride salts, which create physiological drought, osmotic imbalance and ion toxicity to various plant species. Nonetheless, the adverse effect of Cl^- may vary with types of salt and species of plant. This pot experiment reports the effect of 120 mol m^-3 concentration of different salts of Cl^- on the growth, ion contents and yield of little millet crop<em>.</em> The salinity treatments consist of S₀: Control (No salts), S₁: NaCl, S₂: MgCl₂, S₃: CaCl₂, S₄: mixture of NaCl, MgCl₂ and CaCl₂, (1:1:1) and S₅: salt efflorescence. The results indicate the adverse impacts of all chloride salts on plant growth, yield and internal chemical compositions of plant biomolecules. In comparison of control treatment (S₀), the maximum decrease in plant height by 13.97%, number of tillers by 27.42%, root biomass by 45.92% and grain and straw yield by 31.78% and 14.83% respectively was observed in treatment S₁. Moreover, the concentration of toxic elements like sodium and chloride were observed significant at (<em>p</em>&lt;0.05) in S₁ and S₅ treatments. Similarly, the concentration of effective ion nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium were suppressed and found lowest in S₁, S₂, S₄ by 74.21%, 40.21%, 35%% respectively. It is concluded that, the chlorides of sodium at the concentration of 120 mol m^-3are highly toxic for growth and biochemical properties in comparison to other salts of the chlorides and salt efflorescence.</p> <p> &nbsp;</p> Published 2022 54 5 1589 1594