Effect of salinity stress on Vicia faba productivity with respect to ascorbic acid treatment. Awatif Ali Mohsen, Mohsen Kamal Hassan Ebrahim and Wael Fathy Saad Ghoraba*

A field experiment was carried out to study the response of presoaked faba bean seeds (Vicia faba cv. Misr 2) in freshly prepared ascorbic acid (50 ppm) or distilled water (control) for 4 hrs at natural environmental conditions, to salinity stress. NaCl treatments caused a reduction in all productivity and yield parameters as compared with control, particularly at high NaCl level (150 mM), whereas the number of pods per plant, fresh weight of pods per plant, number of seeds per pod and fresh weight of seeds per pod were reduced. In the mean time, ascorbic acid had no effect on the yield parameters. Salinity stress increased the protein content of seeds to some extent. Ascorbic acid treatment to salinized plants remarkably increased the protein content. Also, seed alkaloids were increased with salinity stress, but the response was more pronounced at 100 mM NaCl whether alone or combined with ascorbic acid. The results revealed that protein pattern showed considerable effects of salinity stress on the protein bands. Application of ascorbic acid induced the synthesis and increased the intensity of the original protein bands and caused the appearance of additional new bands.