Synergistic Effects of Rhizobacteria and Salicylic Acid on Maize Salt-Stress Tolerance

作者：Qasim Ali, Maqshoof Ahmad, Muhammad Kamran, Sana Ashraf, Muhammad Shabaan, Babar Hussain Babar, Usman Zulfiqar, Fasih Ullah Haider, M. Ajmal Ali, Mohamed S. Elshikh · 发表于：Plants · 年份：2023 · DOI：10.3390/plants12132519 · 被引用次数：56 · 研究领域：Plant Stress Responses and Tolerance、Plant-Microbe Interactions and Immunity、Plant responses to water stress

Maize (Zea mays L.) is a salt-sensitive plant that experiences stunted growth and development during early seedling stages under salt stress. Salicylic acid (SA) is a major growth hormone that has been observed to induce resistance in plants against different abiotic stresses. Furthermore, plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) have shown considerable potential in conferring salinity tolerance to crops via facilitating growth promotion, yield improvement, and regulation of various physiological processes. In this regard, combined application of PGPR and SA can have wide applicability in supporting plant growth under salt stress. We investigated the impact of salinity on the growth and yield attributes of maize and explored the combined role of PGPR and SA in mitigating the effect of salt stress. Three different levels of salinity were developed (original, 4 and 8 dS m−1) in pots using NaCl. Maize seeds were inoculated with salt-tolerant Pseudomonas aeruginosa strain, whereas foliar application of SA was given at the three-leaf stage. We observed that salinity stress adversely affected maize growth, yield, and physiological attributes compared to the control. However, both individual and combined applications of PGPR and SA alleviated the negative effects of salinity and improved all the measured plant attributes. The response of PGPR + SA was significant in enhancing the shoot and root dry weights (41 and 56%), relative water contents (32%), chlorophyll a and b contents ...