1Department of Agronomy, Hajee Mohammad Danesh Science and Technology University, Dinajpur, Bangladesh
2Department of Agronomy, Regional Agricultural Research Station (Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute), Ishurdi, Pabna, Bangladesh
3Department of Agricultural Extension, Agricultural Training Institute, Gaibandha, 5700, Bangladesh
4Department of Chemical Engineering, Louisiana Tech University, Ruston, LA, 71270, United States
5Department of Plant Production, College of Food and Agricultural Sciences, King Saud University, P.O. Box. 2460, Riyadh, 11451, Saudi Arabia
6Department of Field Crops, Faculty of Agriculture, Siirt University, Turkey
7Department of Agronomy, Faculty of Agriculture, Kafrelsheikh University, Kafr El-Shaikh, 33516, Egypt
*Corresponding Author: Muhammad Aamir Iqbal, Department of Chemical Engineering, Louisiana Tech University, Ruston, LA, 71270, United States, Email: muhammadaamir.iqbal@fulbrightmail.org
Online published on 10 June, 2025.
Salt stress (SS) has seriously threatened the productivity of pulses including black gram in modern input-intensive farming systems which necessitates finding biologically viable, pro-farmer and environmentally friendly SS ameliorating strategies.
An experiment was conducted to assess three levels of both SS (0, 50 and 100 mM NaCl) and citric acid (CA, 0, 50 and 100 μM) applied as a foliar spray to ameliorate the deleterious effects of SS on black gram (cv. BARI Mash-3). The response variables included plant growth traits like plant height (PH), leaf number (BLPP) and root dry weight (RDW) along with chlorophyll contents (chl a, chl b and tchl), plant water status (relative water content RWC and water retention capacity WRC), grain yield (GY), stover yield (SY), biological yield (BY)) and harvest index (HI) along with nitrogen (N) and protein (P) content of black gram.
The results revealed that CA (100 μM) remained unmatched by increasing PH (76.25%), NLPP (37.52%), RDW (83.67%), Chl a (17.80%), Chl b (11.59%), tChl (15.51%), RWC (9.81%) and WRC (26.64%) under highest level of induced SS. The same treatment also surpassed the rest of the doses in terms of grains number per pod (23.89%), 100 grains weight (59.74%), GY (82.86%), SY (59.66%), BY (64.94%) and HI. Moreover, CA accumulated N and P content (29.9%) in the grain under SS conditions. These results indicated that application CA alleviated the adverse effects of SS by triggering the growth, yield and nutritional quality which might be developed as a potent strategy to cope with the declining productivity of black gram in saline environment.
Grain legumes, Mash, Organic acid, Salt stress, Water status
