Salinity stress in maize: Consequences, tolerance mechanisms, and management strategies

Abstract

Maize, along with rice and wheat, is a popular staple food crop worldwide, and the most widely produced cereal crop. It is a versatile crop that may be utilized as a source of raw materials for human and animal fodders. Low agricultural yield and rapid population expansion significantly threaten future food security. Maize production is hampered by biotic and abiotic causes, with abiotic factors being the most critical limitation to agricultural output worldwide. Soil salinity is a key abiotic factor that reduces agricultural production by imposing negative impacts at several life cycle phases, including germination, seedling, vegetative, and reproductive development. Maize plants experience many physiological changes due to osmotic stress, toxicity of particular ions, and nutritional imbalance induced by salt stress. The degree and duration of stress, crop growth phases, genetic characteristics, and soil conditions influence yield reduction. Maize plants can tolerate salt stress involving a complex mechanism by changing their physiological, biochemical, and metabolic activities like stomatal functioning, photosynthesis, respiration, transpiration, hormone regulation, enzymes, metabolite generation, etc. After studying the salt tolerance mechanisms of maize plants under stress, integrated management techniques should be developed for maize agriculture in saline settings. Therefore, the study of plant responses to salt stress, stress tolerance mechanisms, and management strategies is one of the most imperative research fields in plant biology, and the study will focus on the effects of salt stress in different growth stages, plant tolerance mechanisms, and agronomic management practices for successful maize production all over the world.