Salinity and crop yield

Abstract

Thirty crop species provide 90% of our food, most of which display severe yield losses under moderate salinity. Securing and augmenting agricultural yield in times of global warming and population increase is urgent and should, aside from ameliorating saline soils, include attempts to increase crop plant salt tolerance. This short review provides an overview of the processes that limit growth and yield in saline conditions. Yield is reduced if soil salinity surpasses crop-specific thresholds, with cotton, barley and sugar beet being highly tolerant, while sweet potato, wheat and maize display high sensitivity. Apart from Na , also Cl , Mg , SO or HCO contribute to salt toxicity. The inhibition of biochemical or physiological processes cause imbalance in metabolism and cell signalling and enhance the production of reactive oxygen species interfering with cell redox and energy state. Plant development and root patterning is disturbed, and this response depends on redox and reactive oxygen species signalling, calcium and plant hormones. The interlink of the physiological understanding of tolerance processes from molecular processes as well as the agronomical techniques for stabilizing growth and yield and their interlinks might help improving our crops for future demand and will provide improvement for cultivating crops in saline environment.

Growth Characteristics and Fruit Quality of Chili Pepper under Higher Electrical Conductivity of Nutrient Solution Induced by Various Salts

“…The reduction in photosynthesis rates of plants due to reduced leaf area, less chlorophyll content of leaves, impaired water conductivity and water balance of tissues and impaired photo-assimilation and protein biosynthesis have been reported under NaCl salinity conditions (Choudhury, Rivero, Blumwald, & Mittler, 2017;Marschner, 2012;Shabala et al, 2010). These conditions generally led to reduced plant biomass production and limited yield and qualities (Zörb, Geilfus, & Dietz, 2019). In the present study, the differences in growth of treated plants seem to be caused by anion, mainly by chloride.…”

Role of salicylic acid in regulating ethylene and physiological characteristics for alleviating salinity stress on germination, growth and yield of sweet pepper

“…Soil salinity is one of the most devastating environmental stresses, limiting crop productivity and quality especially in arid to semi-arid regions (Shrivastava & Kumar, 2015;Zörb, Geilfus & Dietz, 2019). Salinity impairs plant growth by inducing ion toxicity, physiological drought, oxidative stress and nutrient deficiency particularly K deficiency (Zörb, Geilfus & Dietz, 2019), and thus reduces yields of crops up to 80% (Panta et al, 2014). Scarcity of water, improper irrigation drainage and abuse use of chemical fertilizers have threatened agriculture by salinity.…”

Differential Response of Sugar Beet to Long-Term Mild to Severe Salinity in a Soil–Pot Culture

“…Therefore, about a 70% increase in food production is required within 30 years. But, the salinization problem contributes to a loss of 12 billion US dollar per year [5][6][7], which ultimately undermines the goal of meeting global food security [8]. Salinity stress provokes a wide array of responses in plants via affecting its morpho-physiological, biochemical, and molecular processes.…”