Abstract
Increasing soil salinity suppresses both productivity and fiber quality of cotton, thus, an appropriate management approach needs to be developed to lessen the detrimental effect of salinity stress. This study assessed two cotton genotypes with different salt sensitivities to investigate the possible role of nitrogen supplementation at the seedling stage. Salt stress induced by sodium chloride (NaCl, 200 mmol·L−1) decreased the growth traits and dry mass production of both genotypes. Nitrogen supplementation increased the plant water status, photosynthetic pigment synthesis, and gas exchange attributes. Addition of nitrogen to the saline media significantly decreased the generation of lethal oxidative stress biomarkers such as hydrogen peroxide, lipid peroxidation, and electrolyte leakage ratio. The activity of the antioxidant defense system was upregulated in both saline and non-saline growth media as a result of nitrogen application. Furthermore, nitrogen supplementation enhanced the accumulation of osmolytes, such as soluble sugars, soluble proteins, and free amino acids. This established the beneficial role of nitrogen by retaining additional osmolality to uphold the relative water content and protect the photosynthetic apparatus, particularly in the salt-sensitive genotype. In summary, nitrogen application may represent a potential strategy to overcome the salinity-mediated impairment of cotton to some extent.
Highlights
Salt stress is the foremost environmental factor that drastically decreases the crop yield in different geographic areas, especially in arid and semi-arid regions [1,2]
The results showed that nitrogen supplementation significantly enhanced the chlorophyll a (Chl a), chlorophyll b (Chl b), and total chlorophyll (TChl) contents of cotton seedlings (Figure 3)
This study showed that nitrogen supplementation was beneficial for cotton plants and helped to alleviate the toxic effects of salinity stress on the growth of two genotypes
Summary
Salt stress is the foremost environmental factor that drastically decreases the crop yield in different geographic areas, especially in arid and semi-arid regions [1,2]. This has been forecast to gradually increase as a consequence of climate change [3]. About 7% of the total global land area is affected by the detrimental effects of salinity [4]. Cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) is considered a moderately salt-tolerant and non-halophytic plant that may be used as a pioneer crop for soil reclamation of saline-alkaline land.
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