Affiliations 

  • 1 College of Chemistry and Materials Engineering, Anhui Science and Technology University, Fengyang, Anhui, 233100, China
  • 2 College of Life and Health Science, Anhui Science and Technology University, Fengyang, Chuzhou, Anhui, 233100, China. huangsc@ahstu.edu.cn
  • 3 College of Life and Health Science, Anhui Science and Technology University, Fengyang, Chuzhou, Anhui, 233100, China
  • 4 Department of Soil Science, Faculty of Agricultural Sciences and Technology, Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan, Punjab, 60000, Pakistan. sd96850@gmail.com
  • 5 Department of Environmental Sciences, The Woman University Multan, Multan, Punjab, 60000, Pakistan. misbahhareem223@gmail.com
  • 6 Department of Botany and Microbiology, College of Science, King Saud University, P.O. 2455, Riyadh, 11451, Saudi Arabia
  • 7 Center of Excellence in Biotechnology Research, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
  • 8 Department of Biochemistry, Centre of Molecular Medicine and Diagnostics (COMMAND), Saveetha Dental College and Hospitals, Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences (SIMATS), Chennai, 600077, India
  • 9 Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, INTI International University, Putra Nilai, Negeri Sembilan, Nilai, 71800, Malaysia
BMC Plant Biol, 2024 Jan 23;24(1):63.
PMID: 38262953 DOI: 10.1186/s12870-024-04753-x

Abstract

Salinity stress adversely affects agricultural productivity by disrupting water uptake, causing nutrient imbalances, and leading to ion toxicity. Excessive salts in the soil hinder crops root growth and damage cellular functions, reducing photosynthetic capacity and inducing oxidative stress. Stomatal closure further limits carbon dioxide uptake that negatively impact plant growth. To ensure sustainable agriculture in salt-affected regions, it is essential to implement strategies like using biofertilizers (e.g. arbuscular mycorrhizae fungi = AMF) and activated carbon biochar. Both amendments can potentially mitigate the salinity stress by regulating antioxidants, gas exchange attributes and chlorophyll contents. The current study aims to explore the effect of EDTA-chelated biochar (ECB) with and without AMF on maize growth under salinity stress. Five levels of ECB (0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6 and 0.8%) were applied, with and without AMF. Results showed that 0.8ECB + AMF caused significant enhancement in shoot length (~ 22%), shoot fresh weight (~ 15%), shoot dry weight (~ 51%), root length (~ 46%), root fresh weight (~ 26%), root dry weight (~ 27%) over the control (NoAMF + 0ECB). A significant enhancement in chlorophyll a, chlorophyll b and total chlorophyll content, photosynthetic rate, transpiration rate and stomatal conductance was also observed in the condition 0.8ECB + AMF relative to control (NoAMF + 0ECB), further supporting the efficacy of such a combined treatment. Our results suggest that adding 0.8% ECB in soil with AMF inoculation on maize seeds can enhance maize production in saline soils, possibly via improvement in antioxidant activity, chlorophyll contents, gas exchange and morphological attributes.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.