“…The main abiotic stresses such as high salinity, drought, cold and heat have a negative effect on the survival, development of biomass and yield of staple food crops of up to 70% ( Gupta and Thind, 2017 , Hashmat et al, 2021 , Yaseen et al, 2020 , Zaheer et al, 2020d ). Among these abiotic stresses, much of the crop research carried out due to global economic losses, estimated at around $14–19 million US dollars, has centered on soil salinity ( Jing et al, 2018 , Munns and Tester, 2008 , Zafar et al, 2015 ). Salt stress mainly affects plants in two ways, i.e., osmotic stress, induced by the deposition of large quantities of soluble salts in the soil, which reduces the supply of soil water to plants; and ion toxicity, caused by high salt accumulation within the plant, which disrupts a number of metabolic processes, including the inactivation of certain enzymes ( Kaya et al, 2015 , Parida and Das, 2005 , Safdar et al, 2019 , Zamin and Khattak, 2017 ).…”