Foliar nitrogen fertilization attenuating harmful effects of salt stress on purple basil

Abstract

Salinity can have detrimental effects on plant development. To minimize this damage, strategies such as balanced maintenance of plants’ nutritional status have been proposed previously. The objective of this study is to investigate whether the optimization of foliar nitrogen fertilization can promote the growth and photochemical efficiency of purple basil subjected to salt stress. The experiment was performed using a randomized block design with an incomplete 5 × 5 factorial arrangement generated through experimental matrix Central Composite Design with two parameters: salinity of irrigation water at 0.5, 0.81, 2.75, 4.69, and 5.50 dS m-1; and nitrogen doses at 0, 58.58, 200, 341.42, and 400 mg L-1. It was found that an increase in the salinity of irrigation water reduced the growth and photochemical efficiency of purple basil. However, the foliar application of nitrogen at the concentration of 400 mg L-1 attenuated the harmful effects of salinity on both the absolute and relative growth rates of stem diameter, the relative growth of plant height, and chlorophyll A fluorescence. These results showed that foliar nitrogen fertilization is a suitable strategy to help mitigate salt stress in basil plants.

Photosynthetic pigments, growth, and production of cherry tomato under salt stress and hydrogen peroxide

“…Salt stress triggers a series of deleterious effects on plants, due to osmotic effects that limit their capacity to absorb water, ionic effects that result in specific ion toxicity and nutritional imbalance, and oxidative stress that leads to the formation of reactive oxygen species and degradation of enzymes and photosynthesizing pigments (Ramos et al, 2022a;Nóbrega et al, 2023).…”