Abstract

Soybean is one of the major oil crops with multiple uses which is gaining popularity worldwide. Apart from the edible oil, this crop provides various food materials for humans as well as feeds and fodder for animals. Although soybean is suitable for a wide range of soils and climates, it is sensitive to different abiotic stress such as salinity, drought, metal/metalloid toxicity, and extreme temperatures. Among them, soil salinity is one of the major threats to soybean production and the higher yield of soybean is often limited by salt stress. Salt stress negatively affects soybean seedling establishment, growth, physiology, metabolism, and the ultimate yield and quality of crops. At cellular level, salt stress results in the excess generation of reactive oxygen species and creates oxidative stress. However, these responses are greatly varied among the genotypes. Therefore, finding the precise plant responses and appropriate adaptive features is very important to develop salt tolerant soybean varieties. In this connection, researchers have reported many physiological, molecular, and agronomic approaches in enhancing salt tolerance in soybean. However, these endeavors are still in the primary stage and need to be fine-tuned. In this chapter, we summarized the recent reports on the soybean responses to salt stress and the different mechanisms to confer stress tolerance.

Highlights

  • Soybean (Glycine max L.) is considered to be one of the major oilseed crops as well as an economically important leguminous crop as it supplies more than 25% of the global protein requirement for food and feed [1, 2]

  • Salinity has a destructive effect on plants by imparting osmotic stress as well as ionic imbalance and toxicity

  • This is why the yield performance, growth, and quality of the cultivated soybean are lower under salt stress

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Summary

Introduction

Soybean (Glycine max L.) is considered to be one of the major oilseed crops as well as an economically important leguminous crop as it supplies more than 25% of the global protein requirement for food and feed [1, 2]. The antioxidant defense system is a vital strategy for the alleviation of oxidative stress in plants It consists of different enzymatic and non-enzymatic components which act as saviors at their optimum levels. The use of salt-tolerant varieties, seed priming, use of exogenous protectants, beneficial microbes, or proper modulation of agronomic managements are other potential strategies to enhance salt stress tolerance in different crops including soybean. Liu et al [2] suggested that lodging resistant long plants with shorter internodes might be helpful in this regard They suggested that minimization of pod abscission is required to ensure a better yield. Environmental adversities like salinity are making these tasks more challenging as it hampers soybean growth and productivity by inhibiting germination and other vital physiological processes [3]. We have summarized the up-to-date findings focused on the responses of soybean to salt stress and exploring the tolerance mechanisms

Soybean: a crop of multiple uses
Seed germination and emergence
Growth
Photosynthesis
Water relation
Yield and quality
Using salt tolerant genotypes
Seed priming for salt tolerance in soybean
Agronomic managements
Application of different stress elicitors
Use of beneficial microbes
Enhancing antioxidant defense
Findings
Conclusion and perspectives
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