Impact of dye effluent on growth and chlorophyll content of Alfalfa (Medicago sativa l.)

Abstract

The textile industry plays an important role in the world economy as well as in our daily life time, it consumes large quantity of water and generates huge amount of waste water. The chemical reagents used in the textile sector are diverse in chemical composition ranging from inorganic to organic molecules. The presence of these chemicals will show detrimental effects on the germination process and growth of seedlings. Present research work has been carried out to study the impact of effluent at different concentrations (20%, 40%, 60%, 80%, 100%) on seed germination and seedling growth of Medicago sativa. On the 14^th day of seedling growth, maximum root and shoot length were observed at 20% concentration of effluent i.e. 5.4cm (root length) and 5.1cm (shoot length) which increased 3.8% and 4.0% respectively in comparison to control. At high concentrations of treatment levels root length was decreased 2.04%, 19.2%, 26.5%, 51.0% respectively and shoot length was decreased 3.84%, 17.3%, 26.9%, 44.2% respectively at 40%, 60%, 80% and 100% treatment levels in comparison to control (4.9cm and 5.2cm respectively). Same trend was observed during estimation of dry weight and chlorophyll contents.  Inhibition of seedling germination and seedling growth at higher concentrations of effluent may be due to high level of dissolved solids which inhance the salinity. The present study concluded that the dyeing effluent waste significantly influence growth parameters of Medicago sativa.