EFFECTS OF SALINITY ON NEW ARTICHOKE CULTIVARS

Results of a field research to study salinity tolerance of four “seed” propagated artichoke cultivars (‘Opal’, ‘A 106’, ‘Lorca’ and ‘Violin’) and ‘Violetto di Provenza’ agamically propagated, are reported. All the cultivars resulted moderately salinity tolerant according to literature data on cultivars “seed” and agamically propagated. Threshold, slope and ECe50 values were, respectively, equal to 2.3 – 1.9 – 4.2 – 4.3 and 3.9 dS m^-1, 7.2 – 5.6 – 4.9 – 5.7 and 5.7% m dS^-1, 9.2 – 10.8 – 14.4 – 13.1 and 12.7 dS m^-1 respectively for ‘Opal’, ‘A 106’, ‘Lorca’, ‘Violin’ and ‘Violetto di Provenza’. These results show ‘Lorca’ and ‘Violin’ as the more salt tolerant cultivars and ‘Opal’ the less tolerant one. Salinity increased heads dry matter, whereas heads diameter-length ratio, percentage of edible part and waste, and atrophic heads incidence were not influenced.