Different salt stress response in Kalanchoe plants during vegetative and asexual propagation

Kalanchoe species are characterized by asexual propagation in which plantlets live on leaf margins until they fall down and grow into new plants. Numerous studies have been performed to investigate Kalanchoe species tolerance to several environmental stresses. However, plant's developmental stages have not been correlated yet with plant's tolerance to such stresses. The aim of this work was to assess salt tolerance in Kalanchoe dai-gremontiana through morphological and physiological analysis performed on plants treated with two NaCl solutions (100 mM and 150 mM) during vegetative and asexual propagation.Plant growth and leaf morphological parameters were negatively affected by salt treatments. Yet, more severe effects were detected during vegetative propagation, especially when plants were treated with 150 mM NaCl. Conversely, two salinity treatments led to similar results during asexual propagation, without significant differences in biomass allocation, water status, photosynthetic pigments, and ions content. Like-wise, the concentration of photosynthetic pigments and ion distribution showed differences according to plant's development phase.The obtained results highlighted different salt stress responses in K. daigremontiana based on its develop-mental stage, especially showing an enhanced salt tolerance for plants with plantlets attached to leaf margins and thus suggesting that the developmental stage is an aspect to be taken into account when investigating plant organisms response to abiotic stresses.(c) 2023 SAAB. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.