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. 2024 Jun 6;14(1):12988.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-63840-z.

Synergistic effects of boron and saponin in mitigating salinity stress to enhance sweet potato growth

Uzma Younis  1 , Subhan Danish  2 , Rahul Datta  3 , Sami Al Obaid  4 , Mohammad Javed Ansari  5
Affiliations

Synergistic effects of boron and saponin in mitigating salinity stress to enhance sweet potato growth

Uzma Younis et al. Sci Rep. .

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.

Keywords: Antioxidant activity; Boron; Chlorophyll content; Photosynthetic rate; Saponin; Sweet potato.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Effect of different concentrations of saponin (SAP) and boron (B) treatments on vine length, vine weight, and number of leaves of sweet potato. Each bar is an average of n = 4 having ± SD showing significant changes at p ≤ 0.05 by applying the Tukey test.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Effect of different concentrations of saponin (SAP) and boron (B) treatments on leaf area, root weight, and storage root yield of sweet potato. Each bar is an average of n = 4 having ± SD showing significant changes at p ≤ 0.05 by applying the Tukey test.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Effect of different concentrations of saponin (SAP) and boron (B) treatments on chlorophyll a, chlorophyll b, total chlorophyll, and carotenoids of sweet potato. Each bar is an average of n = 4 having ± SD showing significant changes at p ≤ 0.05 by applying the Tukey test.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Effect of different concentrations of saponin (SAP) and boron (B) treatments on photosynthetic rate, stomatal conductance, transpiration rate, and Fv/Fm of sweet potato. Each bar is an average of n = 4 having ± SD showing significant changes at p ≤ 0.05 by applying the Tukey test.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Effect of different saponin (SAP) and boron (B) treatment concentrations on sweet potato photon yield of PSII and total soluble protein. Each bar is an average of n = 4 having ± SD showing significant changes at p ≤ 0.05 by applying the Tukey test.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Effect of different concentrations of saponin (SAP) and boron (B) treatments on proline content, malondialdehyde (MDA), DPPH, and ABTS of sweet potato. Each bar is an average of n = 4 having ± SD showing significant changes at p ≤ 0.05 by applying the Tukey test.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Cluster plot convex hull for saponin (SA) levels (A), boron (B) levels (B), and hierarchical cluster plot (C) for studied attributes.
Figure 8
Figure 8
Pearson correlation for studied attributes.
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