Fig. 1.

Selection of salinity conditions for sugar beet acclimation experiments. (A) The experimental design consisted of stepwise up-salting to 300 mM NaCl and harvesting after 3 h, or 339 h i.e. a 14-day period. For some analyses four additional time points were used as indicated. (B) Morphology of plants grown in hydroponics with or without 300 mM NaCl for 14 ds, with a total growth period of 55 d. (C) Growth as indicated by fresh weight increase of sugar beet at different NaCl concentrations. Data are means ±SD of n=5 experiments with three measurements each. (D) Monitoring of early responses of sugar beet during up-salting, namely H₂O₂ levels and SOD activity under control and salinity stress conditions. Data are means ±SD of n=5 experiments with six measurements each for H₂O₂ and three measurements each for SOD activity. The significant difference marked by different letters was calculated using Student’s t-test and further analyzed with Fisher LSD test, with P<0.05, using InfoStat statistical software.