Salinity is the presence of elevated levels of soluble salts in soil and water. It is an ever present threat to crop yield ant it severely limits agricultural productivity, because all crops are highly sensitive to elevated levels of NaCl. Therefore, more and more areas for agricultural use are disappearing. Hence, there is a pressing need to bring back such areas under cultivation and check their further spread and also to improve the fertility of saline soil. Algae including Cyanobacteria have attracted considerable attention in this respect. Though algae flourish well in the saline soil but, when salinity increases it has adverse effects on the algae. Therefore, in the present investigation an attempt has also been made to understand the impact of different concentrations of NaCl viz., 0.2, 0.4, 0.6 and 0.8M, besides control in one set and in the second set alga treated with different concentrations of NaCl in combination with gypsum (10mM) along with control over 30 days. The Oscillatoria willei exhibited multiple morphological anomalies like, light green cells at lower concentrations, while at higher concentrations the cells turned yellow and exhibited inward rolling of filaments with granulated protoplast, deformed cells with shrunken protoplast, elongated, zig-zag, ruptured cells and fragmentation of the filaments into hormogonia. It was speculated that some morphological anomalies might be due to unfavorable growth conditions created by salinity but inward rolling of filaments indicated an adaptation strategy of the alga to protect itself and survive successfully under saline stress. However, the addition of Gypsum to the culture medium protected cells against salt stress and alleviated the adverse effects of NaCl.
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