[Impact of salt stress on peroxidase activity in Populus deltoides cambium and its consequence]

Studies on the impact of salt stress on the peroxidase (POD) activity in Populus deltoides cambium and on the anatomic characteristics of its secondary xylem indicated that the changes of POD activity caused by soil salinity stress behaved differently in dormant and growing period. In low salinity soil, the POD activity of dormant Populus deltoides showed the trend of increasing first, and then, decreasing as the soil salinity was rising gradually. Namely, with the rising of soil salinity in the range of 0.024-->0.094-->0.145%, the POD activity varied in the range of 83.7-->132.1-->63.2 units.min-1.g-1FW accordingly. However, in growing season, with the gradual increase of soil salinity from 0.036 to 0.289%, the POD activity decreased gradually from 405.2 to 107.2 units.min-1.g-1FW. There were regular changes in wood anatomic characteristics of Populus deltoides. Namely, with the increase of soil salinity 0.036-->0.125-->0.289%, the vessel diameters (VD) of both early wood and late wood varied accordingly in the range of 41.8-->56.6-->43.4 microns, and 29.1-->33.1-->33.1 microns, respectively. The vessel frequencies (VF) were 141.8-->113.8-->144.2 and 160.0-->134.8-->206.7 entries mm-2, respectively. Along with the gradual increase of soil salinity from 0.036 to 0.289%, the fiber length gradually decreased from 693.8 to 570.4 microns, and the fiber width decreased from 14.9 to 13.5 microns.