Ornamental plants adapted to urban ecosystem pollution: lawn grasses tolerating deicing reagents

Abstract

Deicing reagents are priority soil pollutants in urban ecosystems. Sodium chloride is one of the priority deicing reagents. Sodium chloride is limiting the spread of lawn grass. We first showed the possibility of using environmental biotechnology in urban greening to obtain lawn grasses tolerant of sodium chloride. We have developed a cell selection technology to obtain salt-tolerant lawn grasses. A cell selection scheme with 1% sodium chloride was used. Most of the tested regenerants were more tolerant to NaCl than original plants. The descendants of the studied regenerants demonstrated the preservation of salt resistance. Most of the descendants of the regenerants Agrostis stolonifera retained high decorative qualities under salinity conditions. The tolerance remained in the next five generations. The descendants of the most salt-tolerant clones Agrostis stolonifera demonstrated resistance to 1% sodium chloride concentration in soil. These plants can serve as the basis for the creation of new salt-tolerant varieties.

Keywords: Agrostis stolonifera; Cell selection; Deicing reagents; Lawn grass; Pollutant; Sodium chloride.