Salicylic acid application alleviates the salt stress effects in wheat

The alleviative effect of salicylic acid (SA) on growth and physiological parameters of two wheat verities under salt stress was studied at greenhouse condition in 2016. The experimental treatments were arranged as factorial based on a RCBD with 4 replications. Salinity stress comprised of three levels of control, 4 and 8 dS/m and the salicylic acid treatments were control (without salicylic acid) and 1 mM salicylic acid application. The experiment was carried out on two varieties of wheat (Tabasi, salinity sensitive and Arvand, salinity tolerant). The results indicated that salinity stress especially in 8 dS/m had inhibitory effect on plant height, spike length, grain number per plant, grain weight per plant, chlorophyll content, and relative water content. Salinity stress enhanced the proline content in wheat varieties, especially in sensitive variety. Foliar application of SA mitigated the adverse salinity impacts on the growth characteristics, chlorophyll, proline, and relative water content. SA spraying increased plant height by 24.3% and 7%, spike length by 20.1% and 6.6%, and relative water content by 5.2% and 2% in Tabasi and Arvand varieties, respectively.Maximum total chlorophyll content (0.82 mgg-1 FW) was achieved in Arvand variety in control treatment while sprayed by SA. Based on the results of this study, spraying SA on sensitive wheat varieties will warrant much better growth and development under salinity stress.