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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Plant Physiol.
Sec. Environmental Interactions
Volume 2 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fphgy.2024.1497753
This article is part of the Research Topic Optimizing Plant Physiology for Sustainable Crop Resilience and Productivity View all articles

Physio-biochemical responses of three sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) lines to phosphate solubilizing bacteria and phosphorous-enriched biochar in saline soils

Provisionally accepted
Siavash Jahanshahi Siavash Jahanshahi 1Payam Moaveni Payam Moaveni 1*Mehdi Ghafari Mehdi Ghafari 2Hamid Mozafari Hamid Mozafari 1Bahram Alizadeh Bahram Alizadeh 2
  • 1 Islamic Azad University, ShahreQods, Tehran, Tehran, Iran
  • 2 Seed and Plant Improvement Institute, Karaj, Alborz, Iran

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    The usage of microbes and biochar (BC) is fundamental in decreasing the impacts of salinity stress by promoting plant growth and development. The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of phosphate solubilizing bacteria (PSB) and phosphorous (P)-enriched BC on the plant growth and biochemical characteristics for three lines of sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) in saline soils. The study was designed with salinity at 100 mM NaCl and PSB (Bacillus subtilis) with 10 9 CFU and BC at 1500 Kg ha -1 in the sunflower lines including RGK38 (salt-sensitive), BGK35 (salt-moderately sensitive), and BGK259 (salt-tolerant) based on completely randomized block design (CRBD) in five replicates. Salinity considerably reduced grain yield, thousand grain weight (TGW), oil content, oil yield, chlorophyll (Chl) content, relative water content (RWC), K, and P, while enhancing malondialdehyde (MDA), electrolyte leakage (EL), Na + , and Cl -in all lines of sunflower with high rate in RGK38. The use of integrated PSB and BC contributed to increases in plant yield. In RGK38 exposed to salinity, PSB+BC raised grain yield (16%), oil yield (27%), RWC (14%), Chl a+b (24%), K (22%), P (127%), but lowered MDA (26%), Na + (36%), and Cl - (41%). Heat map analysis revealed that RGK38 stood out significantly from the other two sunflower lines with the maximum variability under the treatments. MDA showed the most variability among the lines as an indicator of identifying the susceptibility to salinity, PSB, and BC. This study has encouraging implications for agricultural operations in stress-affected areas by highlighting the potential of combining PSB and BC as environmentally acceptable and sustainable ways to increase plant resilience in salty soils.

    Keywords: grain oil, Phosphorous availability, Malondialdehyde, Soil salinity, Rhizosphere microorganism

    Received: 17 Sep 2024; Accepted: 31 Oct 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Jahanshahi, Moaveni, Ghafari, Mozafari and Alizadeh. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Payam Moaveni, Islamic Azad University, ShahreQods, Tehran, Tehran, Iran

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