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ARTICLE

Salicylic Acid Improved the Growth of Soybean Seedlings by Regulating Water Status and Plant Pigments and Limiting Oxidative Injury under Salinity Stress

by Shahin Imran^1,2,*, Md. Asif Mahamud³, Newton Chandra Paul¹, Prosenjit Sarker⁴, Md. Tahjib-Ul-Arif⁵, Nazmul Islam⁵, Mohammad Saidur Rhaman⁶, Saleh H. Salmen⁷, Sulaiman Ali Alharbi⁷, Mohammad Javed Ansari⁸, Mohammed Ali Alshehri⁹, Akbar Hossain^10,*

1 Department of Agronomy, Khulna Agricultural University, Khulna, 9100, Bangladesh
2 Institute of Plant Science and Resources, Okayama University, Kurashiki, 710-0046, Japan
3 Department of Agricultural Chemistry, Khulna Agricultural University, Khulna, 9100, Bangladesh
4 Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, Khulna Agricultural University, Khulna, 9100, Bangladesh
5 Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh, 2202, Bangladesh
6 Department of Seed Science and Technology, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh, 2202, Bangladesh
7 Department of Botany and Microbiology, College of Science, King Saud University, P.O. Box 2455, Riyadh, 11451, Saudi Arabia
8 Department of Botany, Hindu College Moradabad (Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Rohilkhand University Bareilly), Moradabad, 244001, India
9 Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, University of Tabuk, Tabuk, 71491, Saudi Arabia
10 Soil Science Division, Bangladesh Wheat and Maize Research Institute, Dinajpur, 5200, Bangladesh

* Corresponding Authors: Shahin Imran. Email: ; Akbar Hossain. 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(9), 2251-2266. https://doi.org/10.32604/phyton.2024.055736

Received 05 June 2024; Accepted 14 August 2024; Issue published 30 September 2024

Abstract

Soybean (Glycine max) is a potential legume crop, but it cannot thrive in mild salinity. Salicylic acid (SA) is a renowned plant growth hormone that improves tolerance to saline conditions. Hence, the study was performed to understand the functions of priming seeds and supplementation of SA in modulating salt tolerance in soybean seedlings. When exposed to salt stress, soybean seedlings showed considerably higher contents of hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) and malondialdehyde (MDA) while having decreased germination and growth factors, water contents, and photosynthetic pigments. The germination rate, final germination percentage, germination index, germination energy, and seed vigor index considerably improved while the mean germination time decreased in the SA-primed seeds. The results also revealed that SA supplementation increased seedling traits, leaf water content, chlorophyll, and carotenoids and lessened H₂O₂ and MDA content under salt stress. Germination of seeds, seedlings growth traits, plant pigments, H₂O₂, and MDA content with the NaCl and SA treatments were found to substantially interact with each other according to both hierarchical clustering and principal component analysis. Based on the results, SA might be used as a seed priming and exogenous chemical to assist soybeans grow faster under salinity stress.

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