A Review – Some Approaches to Combat Salt Stress in Wheat Crop

Abstract

Wheat constitutes a central position for ensuring food and nutritional security; however, rapidly rising soil and water salinity pose a serious threat to its production globally. Salinity stress is a universal dilemma that is happening due to climate change. It affects hectares of arable land. Main focus regarding improving salinity tolerance in plants has been given to Na+ exclusion/ Na+ compartmentalization and enhanced ROS system. Besides this, ameliorative activity of phytohormones, nutrients, amino acids and organic osmolytes has also been widely studied. Exploring traits in wild genotype aids search for better solutions. Based upon phenotype screening, novel genes involving salinity tolerance will be easily identified. Moreover, selected mutants can be used to validate the functions of salt genes. Wheat plants utilize a range of physiological biochemical and molecular mechanisms to adapt under salinity stress at the cell, tissue as well as whole plant levels to optimize the growth, and yield by off-setting the adverse effects of saline environment. Recently, various adaptation and management strategies have been developed to reduce the deleterious effects of salinity stress to maximize the production and nutritional quality of wheat. Thereby, this review highlights effects of salt tolerance, physiological mechanisms behind salt tolerance and transgenic wheat that are potential indicators of salinity stress tolerance.