article · Sustainability
Drought stress significantly impairs the growth and productivity of barley, an essential crop for global food security. Applying exogenous treatments of ten millimolar proline and half a millimolar salicylic acid counteracts these adverse effects. When administered to water-stressed barley plants across two growing seasons, both substances enhanced stem length, overall dry weight, chlorophyll concentration, relative water content, and final grain yield. In addition, these treatments elevated the activity of protective antioxidant enzymes while markedly reducing cellular damage markers, including lipid peroxidation, electrolyte leakage, superoxide, and hydrogen peroxide levels compared to untreated drought-stressed crops. Untreated drought conditions consistently depressed vegetative growth, enzyme activity, and biological and grain yields. Overall, proline and salicylic acid function effectively as chemical tolerance inducers, shielding barley from physiological injuries triggered by water deficits.
Drought presents a severe threat to agricultural productivity and global food security. Identifying chemical compounds that shield staple crops like barley from water stress helps maintain crop yields during dry periods. Demonstrating that proline and salicylic acid reduce oxidative damage and protect plant growth offers practical insights for developing crop management strategies to counter the impacts of water shortages.
This applied research shows that exogenous treatments using proline and salicylic acid can mitigate drought damage for barley growers. The findings could inform the development of crop protection sprays or biostimulant formulations by agricultural input manufacturers. Because the study tested specific chemical concentrations over two growing seasons, the approach is applied and tested, though further field-scale formulation and operational validation would be required before commercial deployment.
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Barley is a very important crop worldwide and has good impact in preserving food security. The impacts of 10 mM proline and 0.5 mM salicylic acid were evaluated on water stressed barley plants (Hordeum vulgare L. Giza126). Salicylic acid and proline treatments led to increased stem length, plant dry weights, chlorophyll concentration, relative water content, activity of antioxidant enzymes, and grain yield under drought stress. Nevertheless, lipid peroxidation, electrolyte leakage (EL), superoxide (O2·−), and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) significantly decreased in treated barley plants with proline and salicylic acid in both growing seasons as compared with drought treatment only, which caused significant decrease in stem length, plant dry weights, chlorophyll concentration, activity of antioxidant enzymes, as well as biological and grain yield. These results demonstrated the importance of salicylic acid and proline as tolerance inducers of drought stress in barley plants.
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DOI: 10.3390/su12051736
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