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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Abiotic Stress
Volume 16 - 2025 |
doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1528354
This article is part of the Research Topic Mechanisms of Stress Tolerance in Horticultural Crops: Physiological and Molecular Insights View all 9 articles
Mitigating Secondary Salinization in Grapes: Long-term Benefits of Biochar and Cow Dung
Provisionally accepted
Hongyin Zhou Zhong Yu Shiying Zhang Qinghou Zong Yulian Zhang Yuhan Pang 
Naiming Zhang Xianrong Yue Yishu Deng 
Yunsheng Xia *- Yunnan Agricultural University, Kunming, China
Secondary salinization of soil seriously hinders the healthy cultivation of facility grapes. Biochar has been shown to mitigate the negative effects of saline stress on plants. However, the long-term response mechanism between the soil key physicochemical properties, ion concentration, enzyme activity and the physiological resistance of facility grape plants by biochar combined with cow dung application to alleviate the soil secondary salinization stress remains unclear. In this study, a field experiment was set up only once in September 2021 with five different treatments, including no amendments was used as blank control (CK), and application of biochar (10 t•ha-1,T1), cow dung (30 t•ha-1,T2), biochar mixed with cow dung (5 t•ha-1+15 t•ha-1,T3), and biochar mixed with cow dung (10 t•ha-1+30 t•ha-1,T4), respectively. The results showed that compared with the CK treatment, amendments application treatments significantly reduced soil total salt(TS) content and electrical conductivity(EC) value, increased soil water-stable aggregates and nutrient content, stimulated the increase of soil urease(S-UE), sucrose(S-SC) and phosphatase(S-ALP)activities, changed soil exchangeable calcium and magnesium ion concentration, among them, T4 treatment reduced TS and EC by 73.03% and 61.11%, respectively. Biochar combined with cow dung significantly increased chlorophyll content and reduced malondialdehyde content(MDA), the activities of superoxide dismutase(SOD), peroxidase(POD) and catalase(CAT) in grape leaves, and T4 treatment decreased MDA, SOD, POD and CAT by 54.59%, 40.14%, 44.28% and 70.17% compared with the CK treatment, respectively. Correlation analysis showed that the balance of soil exchangeable calcium and magnesium ions and the stability of soil aggregate structure were the key factors to alleviate soil secondary salinization stress. In conclusion, biochar combined with cow dung application can alleviate the oxidative stress response of grape plants and improve the quality of grapes by improving the structure of soil water-stable aggregates, coordinating the concentration of soil exchangeable calcium and magnesium ions, and stimulating soil enzyme activity.
Keywords: biochar, Cow dung, Secondary salinization, grapes, Antioxidant oxidase
Received: 14 Nov 2024; Accepted: 30 Jan 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhou, Yu, Zhang, Zong, Zhang, Pang, Zhang, Yue, Deng and Xia. 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:
Yunsheng Xia, Yunnan Agricultural University, Kunming, China
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