The role of strigolactone in alleviating salinity stress in chili pepper

Abstract

Salinity stress can significantly delay plant growth. It can disrupt water and nutrient uptake, reducing crop yields and poor plant health. The use of strigolactone can be an effective technique to overcome this issue. Strigolactone enhances plant growth by promoting root development and improvement in physiological attributes. The current pot study used strigolactone to amend chili under no salinity and salinity stress environments. There were four treatments, i.e., 0, 10µM strigolactone, 20µM strigolactone and 30µM strigolactone. All treatments were applied in four replications following a completely randomized design (CRD). Results showed that 20µM strigolactone caused a significant increase in chili plant height (21.07%), dry weight (33.60%), fruit length (19.24%), fruit girth (35.37%), and fruit yield (60.74%) compared to control under salinity stress. Significant enhancement in chili chlorophyll a (18.65%), chlorophyll b (43.52%), and total chlorophyll (25.09%) under salinity stress validated the effectiveness of 20µM strigolactone application as treatment over control. Furthermore, improvement in nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium concentration in leaves confirmed the efficient functioning of 20µM strigolactone compared to other concentrations under salinity stress. The study concluded that 20µM strigolactone is recommended for mitigating salinity stress in chili plants. Growers are advised to apply 20µM strigolactone to enhance their chili production under salinity stress.

Keywords: Antioxidant; Chili chlorophyll content; Salinity stress; Strigolactone.

Fig. 1

Effect of treatments on plant height (A), plant dry weight (B) and number of primary branches (C) of chili under no salinity and salinity stress. The bars represent the means of four replicates with standard error. The Tukey test revealed significant changes at p < 0.05, shown by the different letters on the bars

Fig. 2

Effect of treatments on fruit length (A), fruit girth (B), and fruit yield (C) of chili cultivated under no salinity stress and salinity stress. The bars represent the means of four replicates with standard error. The Tukey test revealed significant changes at p < 0.05, shown by the different letters on the bars

Fig. 3

Effect of treatments on chlorophyll a (A), chlorophyll b (B), and total chlorophyll (C) of chili cultivated under no salinity stress and salinity stress. The bars represent the means of four replicates with standard error. The Tukey test revealed significant changes at p < 0.05, shown by the different letters on the bars

Fig. 4

Effect of treatments on electrolyte leakage (A), proline (B), and H₂O₂(C) of chili cultivated under no salinity stress and salinity stress. The bars represent the means of four replicates with standard error. The Tukey test revealed significant changes at p < 0.05, shown by the different letters on the bars

Fig. 5

Effect of treatments on malondialdehyde (MDA) (A), superoxide dismutase (SOD) (B), and ascorbate peroxidase (APX) (C) of chili cultivated under no salinity stress and salinity stress. The bars represent the means of four replicates with standard error. The Tukey test revealed significant changes at p < 0.05, shown by the different letters on the bars

Fig. 6

Effect of treatments on leaves N (A), leaves P (B), leaves K (C), and leaves Na of chili cultivated under no salinity stress and salinity stress. The bars represent the means of four replicates with standard error. The Tukey test revealed significant changes at p < 0.05, shown by the different letters on the bars

Fig. 7

Pearson correlation for studied attributes