Abstract

Salinity stress significantly hinders plant growth by disrupting osmotic balance and inhibiting nutrient uptake, leading to reduced biomass and stunted development. Using saponin (SAP) and boron (B) can effectively overcome this issue. Boron decreases salinity stress by stabilizing cell walls and membranes, regulating ion balance, activating antioxidant enzymes, and enhancing water uptake. SAP are bioactive compounds that have the potential to alleviate salinity stress by improving nutrient uptake, modulating plant hormone levels, promoting root growth, and stimulating antioxidant activity. That’s why the current study was planned to use a combination of SAP and boron as amendments to mitigate salinity stress in sweet potatoes. Four levels of SAP (0%, 0.1%, 0.15%, and 0.20%) and B (control, 5, 10, and 20 mg/L B) were applied in 4 replications following a completely randomized design. Results illustrated that 0.15% SAP with 20 mg/L B caused significant enhancement in sweet potato vine length (13.12%), vine weight (12.86%), root weight (8.31%), over control under salinity stress. A significant improvement in sweet potato chlorophyll a (9.84%), chlorophyll b (20.20%), total chlorophyll (13.94%), photosynthetic rate (17.69%), transpiration rate (16.03%), and stomatal conductance (17.59%) contrast to control under salinity stress prove the effectiveness of 0.15% SAP + 20 mg/L B treatment. In conclusion, 0.15% SAP + 20 mg/L B is recommended to mitigate salinity stress in sweet potatoes.

Details

Title
Synergistic effects of boron and saponin in mitigating salinity stress to enhance sweet potato growth
Author
Younis, Uzma 1 ; Danish, Subhan 2 ; Datta, Rahul 3 ; Al Obaid, Sami 4 ; Ansari, Mohammad Javed 5 

 The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Botany Department, Rahim Yar Khan, Pakistan (GRID:grid.412496.c) (ISNI:0000 0004 0636 6599) 
 Pesticide Quality Control Laboratory, Multan, Pakistan (GRID:grid.412496.c) 
 Mendel University in Brno, Department of Geology and Pedology, Faculty of Forestry and Wood Technology, Brno, Czech Republic (GRID:grid.7112.5) (ISNI:0000 0001 2219 1520) 
 King Saud University, Department of Botany and Microbiology, College of Science, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (GRID:grid.56302.32) (ISNI:0000 0004 1773 5396) 
 Hindu College Moradabad (Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Rohilkhand University Bareilly), Department of Botany, Moradabad, India (GRID:grid.411529.a) (ISNI:0000 0001 0374 9998) 
Pages
12988
Publication year
2024
Publication date
2024
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
e-ISSN
20452322
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
3065128883
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2024. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.