Salt stress alleviation through fertilization in fruit crops

Abstract

Saltstressisoneofthemostwidespreadabioticconstraintsinfoodproductionatendencytoincreaseduetoclimate change,increasingoftheuseoflow-qualitywaterinirrigation,andmassiveintroductionofirrigationassociatedwith intensive farming and low leaching fraction (Machado and Serralheiro, 2017). Saltsaffectingsoilrootzonecanbeanaturalprocessiftheyareoriginatedindeeperlayersofthesoil,asoftenoccurs in soils formed upon calcareous, limestones, and other calcic rocks. However, soil and water salinity is irrevocably associated with irrigated agriculture. With rainfed agriculture, the water used by the crops comes from the rain, free from salts, leaching from the root zone the salts eventually in excess. In nonirrigated lands as a result of water losses, through evapotranspiration situations of poor drainage, with water accumulating over slowly permeable soil layers containing salts, these can rise up to the root zone and accumulate there creating salt stress. On the contrary, the irrigation water contains naturally dissolved minerals, whic