Salicylic Acid and Salt Stress Tolerance in Plants: A Review

Abstract

Soil salinity has become a hot debate and has gained a great scientific interest towards global food security for an increasing population. Because salinity has numerous negative effects on crop physiology and results loss of productivity. Various attempts to overcome salinity have led to detrimental effects. However, scientists have been recruited to use certain eco-friendly techniques to increase stress tolerance in plants by rising the emission rate. One of them, which is naturally present in certain plant species, is Salicylic acid, a well-known growth regulator. Since plant hormones can monitor plant development and growth, they also serve as a strong protector against various abiotic stresses. But their concentration decreases beyond the level of protection when exposed to abiotic stressors such as NaCl stress. Thus, by increasing the amount of endogenous SA, externally supplied SA has found considerable beneficial effects on plant stress resistance. SA introduces many physiological, biochemical, and molecular modifications to plants under salt stress that include immunity. Evidence of external application of SA under salt stress tolerance in plants is discussed in this review. In addition, low SA concentrations have also been addressed and its cross-talk with other regulators.

Keywords

• salicylic acid
• salt stress
• antioxidants
• hormonal cross-talk