Abstract
Salinity is one of the most important abiotic stress inhibiting wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) growth and development. Therefore, finding efficient strategies to prevent salt-induced growth retardation and yield loss is critical for modern agriculture to sustain production. The role of exogenous salicylic acid (SA) and thiourea (TU) in regulating salt tolerance was investigated by evaluating morpho-physiological characteristics and antioxidant response in two wheat genotypes at the seedling stage. In both wheat genotypes, salt stress reduced growth characteristics and leaf water status, photosynthetic pigments, while simultaneously increasing the Na+/K+ ratio, hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), and malondialdehyde (MDA). In contrast, exogenous application of SA and/or TU alone in the salt-stressed plants significantly reduced the negative effects of salt stress and improved the growth performance by up-regulating photosynthetic pigments, leaf water status, and proline content in both genotypes. Besides, when compared to seedlings treated only with salt stress, SA and TU played an important role in maintaining lower Na+/K+ levels and reducing oxidative stress by lowering MDA and H2O2 levels in salt-stressed plants through boosting the activities of antioxidant enzymes such as catalase, ascorbate peroxidase, and peroxidase. In addition, hierarchical clustering and principal component analysis revealed a significant interaction among growth characteristics, chlorophyll content, carotenoid content and antioxidant activity with the salt, SA, and/or TU treatments. The findings suggested that exogenous application of SA or TU could be a useful technique for reducing the negative effects of salinity on wheat growth and development.
Highlights
Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is one of the major cereal crops in Bangladesh, with a global production of about 700 million tons, providing 20% of the daily protein and calorie requirements for over 4.5 billion people worldwide (Arzani & Ashraf 2017)
The greatly amelioration of the harmful effect of salinity more pronouncedly done by foliar application of salicylic acid (SA) in BARI Gom-25 and increased root fresh weight and shoot fresh weight by 91%, 46% as compared to the seedlings treated with salt-stress without SA application, whereas the foliar spray of TU to salt-stressed wheat seedlings caused the moderate enhancement of root and shoot fresh weight in BARI Gom-26 (13% and 15% respectively) as compared to the NaCl treated plants only (Table 1)
The greater increment of root dry weight and shoot dry weight were observed in stressed BARI Gom-26 (38% and 53% respectively) upon the exogenous application of TU to salt-stressed plants in comparison with the seedlings treated with stress only (Table 1)
Summary
Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is one of the major cereal crops in Bangladesh, with a global production of about 700 million tons, providing 20% of the daily protein and calorie requirements for over 4.5 billion people worldwide (Arzani & Ashraf 2017). As a staple food grain for more than 35% of the total populations of Bangladesh, it has emerged as the country’s second most profitable cereal crop after rice (Golder et al, 2013). Wheat cultivation has recently received a lot of attention from Bangladeshi farmers as the demand has increased in the bakery industry (Mottaleb et al, 2018). Outrageous environmental change as a result of dangerous atmospheric deviation and global warming has recently caused a drastic shift. Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made
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