Growth and production of sunflower as a function of cationic nature of the water and nitrogen

In the Brazilian semi-arid region, it is common to find water with high concentration of salts and with variation in its cationic nature. Thus, we aimed to evaluate the growth and production components of sunflower, cv. BRS 324, as a function of irrigation water of different salinity levels and cationic nature associated with doses of nitrogen (N). The experiment was conducted in pots, under open field conditions, in the municipality of Campina Grande-PB, Brazil, in a randomized block design in 5 x 5 factorial scheme, with three replicates, based on five treatments of salinity and cationic nature of the water - S (S1 - Control; S2 - NaCl; S3 - CaCl2; S4 - KCl and S5 - NaCl+CaCl2+MgCl2) combined with five N doses (50; 75; 100; 125 and 150 mg of N kg-1 of soil). Irrigation was performed using water with electrical conductivity - ECw of 0.5 dS m-1 for the control and 5.0 dS m-1 for the other treatments. The growth and production of sunflower cv. BRS 324 were reduced when the crop was irrigated with water of electrical conductivity of 5.0 dS m-1, independent of the cationic nature of water; nitrogen fertilization did not attenuate the deleterious effects of salt stress caused by irrigation waters of 5.0 dS m-1 on sunflower cv. BRS 324; The methods of comparison of means through contrasts and Tukey's test were efficient and can be used together to evaluate the growth and the production of sunflower