Open Access

ARTICLE

Seed Priming with Potassium Nitrate Can Enhance Salt Stress Tolerance in Maize

by Bushra Rehman¹, Asma Zulfiqar¹, Houneida Attia², Rehana Sardar³, Muneera A. Saleh², Khalid H. Alamer⁴, Ibtisam M. Alsudays⁵, Faisal Mehmood⁶, Qamar uz Zaman^7,*

1 Institute of Botany, University of the Punjab, Lahore, 54590, Pakistan
2 Department of Biology, College of Science, Taif University, Taif, 21944, Saudi Arabia
3 Department of Botany, Emerson University, Multan, 60000, Pakistan
4 Biological Sciences Department, Faculty of Science and Arts, King Abdulaziz University, Rabigh, 21911, Saudi Arabia
5 Department of Biology, College of Science, Qassim University, Burydah, 52571, Saudi Arabia
6 Department of Chemistry Sciences, The University of Lahore, Lahore, 54590, Pakistan
7 Department of Environmental Sciences, The University of Lahore, Lahore, 54590, Pakistan

* Corresponding Author: Qamar uz Zaman. Email:

(This article belongs to the Special Issue: Abiotic Stress Impacts on Plant Physiology and Their Alleviation)

Phyton-International Journal of Experimental Botany 2024, 93(8), 1819-1838. https://doi.org/10.32604/phyton.2024.048780

Received 18 December 2023; Accepted 20 June 2024; Issue published 30 August 2024

Abstract

Salinity is a major abiotic stress that hinders plant development and productivity and influences agricultural yield. Seed priming is a technique used to boost germination and seedling growth under abiotic stress. A pot experiment was conducted to evaluate the impact of seed priming with potassium nitrate (KNO₃) at various levels (0%, 0.50%, 1.00% and 1.50%) under salt stress (0, 75, 100 mM NaCl) on two maize verities (MNH360 and 30T60) for the growth, development and metabolic attributes results revealed that in maize variety MNH360, KNO₃ priming’s significantly enhanced growth parameters than in maize variety 30T60 under control and salt-stressed conditions. Priming with KNO₃ enhanced carotenoids and total chlorophyll in the 30T60 variety that protected the maize plants from salt stress. Nevertheless, it was shown that priming with 1.00% KNO₃ acts as safeguarded to protect them from oxidative damage by salt stress minimizing reactive oxygen species (ROS) formation through increased levels of malondialdehyde (MDA), catalase (CAT), peroxidase (POD), ascorbate peroxidase (APX), and total soluble protein. The findings of the present study confirm that the use of the KNO₃ seed priming technique is a low-cost, environmentally friendly technique for mitigating adverse impacts of salt stress in maize crops by activating the antioxidant defense system and improving chlorophyll and osmolyte contents.

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