Abstract
Soil salinity is the main obstacle to worldwide sustainable productivity and food security. Zinc sulfate (Zn) and paclobutrazol (PBZ) as a cost-effective agent, has multiple biochemical functions in plant productivity. Meanwhile, their synergistic effects on inducing salt tolerance are indecisive and not often reported. A pot experiment was done for evaluating the defensive function of Zn (100 mg/L) or PBZ (200 mg/L) on salt (0, 50, 100 mM NaCl) affected pea plant growth, photosynthetic pigment, ions, antioxidant capacity, and yield. Salinity stress significantly reduces all growth and yield attributes of pea plants relative to nonsalinized treatment. This reduction was accompanied by a decline in chlorophyll, nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium (K+), the ratio between K+ and sodium (Na+), as well as reduced glutathione (GSH) and glutathione reductase (GR). Alternatively, salinity increased Na+, carotenoid (CAR), proline (PRO), ascorbic acid (AsA), superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), and ascorbate peroxidase (APX) over nonsalinized treatment. Foliar spraying with Zn and PBZ under normal condition increased plant growth, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, K+/Na+ ratio, CAR, PRO, AsA, GSH, APX, GR, and yield and its quality, meanwhile decreased Na+ over nonsprayed plants. Application of Zn and PBZ counteracted the harmful effects of salinity on pea plants, by upregulating the antioxidant system, ion homeostasis, and improving chlorophyll biosynthesis that induced plant growth and yield components. In conclusion, Zn plus PBZ application at 30 and 45 days from sowing offset the injuries of salinity on pea plant growth and yield by upregulating the antioxidant capacity and increasing photosynthetic pigments.
Highlights
Salinity is the foremost global ecological constraint to worldwide sustainable production and food security
Field pea plants that were sprayed with Zinc sulfate (Zn) + PBZ showed noticeable differences in growth relative to the plants sprayed with either Zn or PBZ alone, and untreated control plants (Figure 1a–c)
3 of in pea plants that were sprayed with Zn + PBZ showed noticeable differences growth relative to the plants sprayed with either Zn or PBZ alone, and untreated control plants (Figure 1a–c)
Summary
Salinity is the foremost global ecological constraint to worldwide sustainable production and food security. Salt stress influences about 936 Mha of arable lands, causing yearly worldwide monetary losses of 27.5 billion USD [1,2]. Salinity stress manifests an overproduction of reactive oxygen species (ROS), like superoxide (O2 − ) and hydrogen peroxide (H2 O2 ), which seriously disrupt normal metabolism and causes a drastic physio-biochemical and molecular dysfunction [6,7,8]. Plants 2020, 9, 1197 self-protection strategies to mitigate oxidative injury and disposing of ROS molecules. These include exclusion and compartmentation of toxic ions, as well as overproduction of compatible solutes [3,7,9]
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