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Salinity affects almost every aspect of the physiology and biochemistry of plants due to both osmotic stress and ionic toxicity. We studied the variation of ion uptake in tomato cv. BARI Tomato-5 under different levels of salinity (0, 2, 4, 6 and 8 dS m-1) and their mitigation by different concentration of Ca2+ (0, 5, 10 mM). The results showed that salt stress significantly affects the stomatal conductance of tomato. Salt treatment markedly increased the uptake of Na+ and decreased both K+ and Ca2+ uptake in the leaves of tomato. The uptake of Na+ decreased and uptake of Ca2+ and K+ increased in tomato when salt-stressed plants were treated with Ca2+. Our results revealed that Ca supplementation can effectively reduce the salt-induced ionic toxicity in tomato plants. Exogenous application of Ca2+ significantly mitigates the adverse effects of salt-induced ionic toxicity.

Sowing date and weed management play a significant role in determining soybean growth, development and seed yield. Results showed that different sowing date and weed control methods had significant effect on relative weed density, weed biomass, weed control efficiency, plant height, dry weight plant-1 and seed yield of soybean. Among the infested weed species in the experimental field the dominant weeds were Lindernia procumbens (44.78%), Echinochloa colonum (26.39%) and Cynodon dactylon (16.30%). The results also revealed that early sowing (2 January) brought about the highest seed yield (2.17 t ha-1) and sowing delay (1 February) resulted in the lowest yield (1.64 t ha-1). Two times hand weeding (20 and 40 DAS) controlled the weeds most effectively and led to highest seed yield (2.23 t ha-1) which was statistically similar (2.19 t ha-1) with herbicide application. Combination effect showed that the highest seed yield (2.50 t ha-1) was obtained from 2 January sowing when the crop was weeded by hand at 20 and 40 DAS.