Response and Tolerance of Agricultural Crops to Salinity Stress

Dear Colleagues,

Abiotic stresses affect mineral nutrient balance, physiological, biochemical, and morphological responses, and gene expression of plants growing in saline soils or under irrigation with saline waters. The literature is abundant in the uptake and accumulation of salts (mainly NaCl), the accumulation of aminoacids such as proline and glycine betaine, physiological aspects such as stomatal conductance and photosynthetic activity, and on the expression of genes that are important to salt tolerance mechanisms in model crops. However, we lack information in several aspects that will help us understand plant response to salinity.  These include, but are not restricted to, reactive oxygen species (ROS), biochemical markers such as antioxidant flavonoids that accumulate inside of vacuoles (as salts do), sugars, aminoacids besides proline and betaine, root and shoot morphology, plant hormones and growth regulators, and secondary metabolites (such as flavonoids, polyamines, etc.) that, besides protecting the plant from stress, may also increase the nutritional value of the crop.  Understanding the interaction between stress and nutrition is also highly relevant for modern agriculture in order to ensure high yields and high quality of plant products produced under saline environments. Combinations of stresses such as drought and salinity and salinity and nutrition, are more complex to understand than individual stress and should also be considered. Although we understand the importance of the several aspects related to plant response and tolerance to salinity, we should also urge colleagues to submit their work related to the involvement of microorganisms (e.g., endophytes), chemical primers (e.g., H₂O₂, salicylic acid, etc.), new potential agricultural, horticultural, and forage crops that may be alternatives to cultivation under salinity (including their respective postulated mechanisms of salinity tolerance) and that will allow irrigated agriculture to continue providing food and animal feed to sustain a fast growing world population.

This Special Issue intends to highlight the recent progress in the efforts to understand response and tolerance mechanisms of plants to saline stress and alternatives to minimize salinity effects, maintaining plant growth and development to assure commercially-feasible crop yields. All types of articles, original research, opinions and reviews that provide new insights into the effects of salinity stress and the mechanisms involved in the stress responses are welcome. Experimental studies and theoretical approaches referring to the molecular, cellular, organ or whole plant level may also be considered. The following list gives some examples, but is not exhaustive:

• Mechanisms of salt tolerance (tissue tolerance, exclusion, sequestration into vacuoles, etc.)
• Morphological aspects (shoot and root architecture and morphology)
• Alternative salt-tolerant species with agronomical/horticultural potential
• Biochemical markers (aminoacids, sugars, hormones, secondary metabolites, antioxidants, etc.)
• Chemical primers (H2O2, salicylic acid, jasmonic acid, growth regulators, salts, etc.)
• Symbiotic microbes (e.g., endophytes)
• Gene expression associated with salt-tolerance mechanisms
• New data on economic aspects of the effects of salinity on global agricultural production

Dr. Jorge Ferreira
Guest Editor

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