Noni (Morinda citrifolia L.) is a plant tolerant to the effects of saline and alkaline soils and grows in dry or moist climates. Despite the intercontinental adaptability, in Brazil there is little information about its tolerance to soil salinity. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the effects of saline water on the growth of Noni. For this an experiment was conducted in polyethylene pots with a capacity of 20 L, in Sobral, Ceará. The statistical design was a randomized block design arranged in split plot scheme, with 5 repetitions. The plots consisted of the cultivation environments (open sky and greenhouse), the subplots by salinity levels of irrigation water (ECw: 0.3, 1.5, 3.0, 4.5 and 6.0 dS m-1), and the subsubplots were represented by the absence and presence of organic matter. At 110 days after treatment (DAT), the following variables were evaluated: height, shoot dry mass (SDM), root dry mass (RDM), total dry mass (TDM) and leaf area (LA) and at 90 DAT organic solutes in the leaf. All variables were negatively affected by salinity and the effect observed in the open environment was more intense than under greenhouse conditions. The organic matter had no effect on mitigating the deleterious effects of salinity in plants of noni. The accumulation of proline was found to be a sign of stress damage, since the highest accumulation of this solute was observed in plants that experienced greater reductions in growth.
Noni; dry mass; carbohydrate; organic compounds
