Differential effects of aluminium on the seedling parameters of wheat

In order to determine the effect of different aluminium (Al) concentrations on the seedling parameters of wheat and the effect of malate and citrate treatments as chelates for reducing the noxious effect of Al in medium culture and seedlings of two wheat cultivars, Darab (Al sensitive) and Maroon (Al tolerant) were grown on hydroponic solution (non modified Hoagland) containing AlCl 3 (0-100-200-300 μM). Factorial experiment was realized in a complete randomized design with three replications. The root and shoot length as well as fresh and dry weight of roots and shoots were measured. Leaf area was measured by a special computer program named compuEyeLSA. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed that, for fresh weight of root (FWR), fresh weight of shoot (FWS), dry weight of shoot (DWS) and length of root (LR), the main effect of genotype, Al concentration and their interaction was highly significant, whereas, in the case of dry weight of root (DWR) and leaf area (LA) traits, only the main effect of genotype and Al concentration were highly significant. LS trait only was affected by different Al concentrations. ANOVA indicated a significant interaction between genotype and Al concentration for DWS, FWR, FWS and LR traits. Therefore, a separate regression analysis was conducted for each genotype. We found difference in fitted model between two studied varieties. In the second experiment the effect of malate and citrate treatments was studied on reducing the noxious effect of Al in medium culture. ANOVA revealed that, there are significant differences among applied treatments on studied seedling growth parameters. This means that the application of malate or citrate is effective in some Al  concentrations as compared to others. Key words : Triticum aestivum L., hydroponic, aluminium-tolerant, length of root, regression analysis.