Effects of Amino Acid Priming Applications Enhances Salt Tolerance in Safflower ( <i>Carthamus tinctorius</i> L.)

ABSTRACT This study was conducted to determine the effects of priming safflower cultivar (Askon 42) with various doses (0, 5, 10, 15 mM) of 3 different amino acids (methionine, lysine, tyrosine) against salt stress (0, 50, 100, 150 mM) in terms of investigated parameters. For this purpose, two separate experiments were conducted: laboratory and pot experiments. In the laboratory experiment, germination rate (GP), germination index (GI), and in both laboratory and pot studies, seedling length (SL), root length (RL), seedling fresh weight (FW), root fresh weight (RW), total chlorophyll (Total Chl), carotenoid (Crt), relative water content (RWC), electrolyte leakage (EL), proline (Pro), total phenolic content (TPC), lipid peroxidation (MDA), and superoxide dismutase (SOD) properties were investigated. All applied amino acids and their doses played an important role in reducing the negative effects of salt stress. However, the 10‐mM dose of the amino acid Lyc was found to be more effective in reducing the negative effects of salt stress for all parameters studied. Correlation analysis results indicated that RL, SL, RW and FW showed a strong positive correlation with each other in both experiments. PCA analysis revealed that MDA and Pro showed a strong positive correlation with each other in the laboratory experiment, while EL and Pro showed a strong positive correlation in the pot experiment. When the study results were evaluated collectively, it was concluded that amino acids can be used to reduce the negative effects of salt stress.