Enhancing cotton’s resilience to waterlogging and salinity stress with exogenous antioxidants

Abstract

Cotton is classified as moderately salt tolerant crop with salinity threshold level of 7.7 dS m-1. Salinity is a serious threat for cotton growth, yield and fiber quality. The sensitivity to salt and WL stress depends upon growth stage and type of salt. Understanding of cotton response to salinity and WL stress, its resistance mechanism and looking into management techniques may assist in formulating strategies to improve cotton performance under stress condition. The studies have showed that germination, emergence and seedling stages are more sensitive to salinity stress as compared to later stages. Salt & WL stress results in delayed flowering, less fruiting positions, fruit shedding and reduced boll weight which ultimately affect seed cotton yield. It is suggested that future research may be carried out with the combination of conventional and advance molecular technology to develop salt tolerant cultivars.