Impact of irrigation water salinity on agronomical and quality attributes of Cenchrus ciliaris L. accessions

Cultivation of salt tolerant perennial grasses using saline water irrigation is potentially an important strategy to save fresh water resources and maximize the forage yield of small-scale farms in the marginal environment. Field evaluation of 40 Buffel grass (Cenchrus ciliaris L.) genotypes was conducted at ICBA, Dubai, UAE over eight years (2006–2013) under three irrigation water salinities (EC: 5, 10 and 15dSm−1) to identify salinity tolerance potential based on plant growth, biomass yield and quality attributes. Total annual and average fresh (FW) and dry biomass (DW) varied significantly among genotypes under all salinity levels. Lower DW producing accessions were higher in nutritive value while higher DW producing accessions had lower nutritive value in terms of crude protein (CP) and neutral detergent fiber (NDF). From multivariate analysis, accessions 37, 2, 3, 12, and 15 were salt tolerant, high biomass and stable genotypes with adequate nutritive value at different salinities. In contrast, genotypes 21, 23, 24, 25, and 40 were salt sensitive and low yielding. Genotype 37 (Grif 1619) was the most stable and high yielder at all salinity levels. The local accession 38 (MAF 74) had higher yield comparable to 37 but declined sharply at the highest salinity that made it suitable for medium level salinity. It is concluded that wide genotypic diversity exists among a diverse collection of C. ciliaris accessions for salinity tolerance biomass production and multivariate analysis facilitate the grouping of stable and high yield accessions into different clusters. These salt-tolerant accessions can be grown to maximize forage production and desertification combat in the arid environment.