Evaluating physiological responses of plants to salinity stress

BACKGROUND: Because soil salinity is a major abiotic constraint affecting crop yield, much research has been conducted to develop plants with improved salinity tolerance. Salinity stress impacts many aspects of a plant's physiology, making it difficult to study in toto Instead, it is more tractable to dissect the plant's response into traits that are hypothesized to be involved in the overall tolerance of the plant to salinity. SCOPE AND CONCLUSIONS: We discuss how to quantify the impact of salinity on different traits, such as relative growth rate, water relations, transpiration, transpiration use efficiency, ionic relations, photosynthesis, senescence, yield and yield components. We also suggest some…

• KA
  King Abdullah University of Science and Technology