Performance of purslane (Portulaca oleracea L.) as a salt-removing crop Cenk Ceyhun Kilic ¸ a, *, Yasemin S. Kukul b , Dilek Anac ¸ c a Ege University, Bayindir Technical College, 35840 Bayindir, Izmir, Turkey b Ege University, Agriculture Faculty, Department of Agricultural Structures and Irrigation, 35100 Bornova, Izmir, Turkey c Ege University, Agriculture Faculty, Department of Soil Sciences, 35100 Bornova, Izmir, Turkey 1. Introduction Phytoremediation is an environmentally friendly technique to cope with the salination of agricultural soils. Crop species differ greatly in their growth response when removing salts from soil; the performance of halophytes is notable. Some glycophytes can be intercropped with salt-sensitive fruit trees to improve the tree growth; such sustainable utilization is actively promoted. Purslane (Portulaca oleracea), New Zealand spinach (Tetragonia tetragonoides) and cardoon (Cynara cardun- culus) are promising crops for saline agriculture. In this regard, purslane is a reasonable selection due to its high nutritive and antioxidant properties as human food, animal feed and medical utilization. Purslane comprises more nutritive values than other vegetables due to its v-3 fatty acid, a-tocopherol, ascorbic acid, b-carotene and glutathione-rich shoots (Wenzel et al., 1990). Moreover its short vegetation period and high fresh weight yields of 70 t/ha add to its value. Purslane is also an important food in Turkish cuisine and is consumed both fresh and cooked. Sodium and K are beneficial and essential elements for plant growth. In saline environments, since K uptake is generally reduced, supplementary K is necessary and maintaining higher tissue Ca is also important (Viegas et al., 2001). Chloride is a secondary plant nutrient involved in charge compensation processes, osmoregulation and stomatal regulation (Marschner, 1995). Lacerda et al. (2001) have suggested that plant salt tolerance is due to the ability to avoid accumulation of harmful Na and/or maintain adequate K in the shoots. Salinity has been reported to disturb the integrity of cell membranes by inducing structural changes (Kuiper, 1984) and by replacing Ca with Na on the plasma membrane, altering K/Na ratio. Increased K/Na ratio during uptake and reduced Na translocation from root to shoot contributes to salt tolerance of glycophytes (Rascio et al., 2001). agricultural water management 95 (2008) 854–858 article info Article history: Received 7 July 2007 Accepted 24 January 2008 Published on line 8 April 2008 Keywords: Salinity Purslane Salt removing crops abstract Specific plants can remove salts from the soil and contribute to saline remediation in orchard intercropping. Determining the level of highest salinity that a salt-removing crop can withstand without reducing its yield is important for management. It is also important to know the critical hazardous level of saline irrigation water for the fruit trees. The objective of this study was to investigate the salt-removing capacity of purslane by studying different stress criteria and by tracking its salt removal from germination to harvest. Therefore, a pot experiment was performed by enhanced salinity levels. The results showed that purslane could cumulatively remove considerable amounts of salt from the soil if practical to cultivate as an intercrop all year round. In this regard, 6.5 dS m 1 can be concluded as the reasonable salinity level for the purslane managed to be intercropped in fruit orchards. # 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. * Corresponding author. Tel.: +90 232 581 63 17; fax: +90 232 581 71 75. E-mail addresses: cenk.kilic@ege.edu.tr (C.C. Kilic ¸), senem.kukul@ege.edu.tr (Y.S. Kukul), dilek.anac@ege.edu.tr (D. Anac ¸). available at www.sciencedirect.com journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/agwat 0378-3774/$ – see front matter # 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.agwat.2008.01.019