Abscisic acid-mediated yield gain through reduced oxidative damage caused by salt and water stress in Cyperus esculentus

Highlights

	● Negative Synergy of homogeneous limitation caused by combined water and salt stress.
	● A pivotal role of abscisic acid in the response to combined salt and water stress.
	● Cyperus esculentus sustain organic matter production by reallocating resources.
	● Morphological changes are more sensitive to water limitation.

Abstract

The investigation of the response mechanisms of Cyperus esculentus to water and salt stresses is crucial for the enhancement of the productivity of saline soils. Previous studies have indicated that plant hormones, antioxidant systems, and osmoregulation may contribute to the stabilization of yield. However, the contributions and interactions of these mechanisms remain poorly understood under combined water and salt stress in natural environments. A dual-factor (salt and water) orthogonal test was used to investigate the growth and biochemical responses of C. esculentus, under combined salt and water stress in a field experiment conducted on a typical saline area in northern China. The findings reveal that C. esculentus adjusted its biomass allocation strategies and activated hormone responses, antioxidant system, and osmoregulation mechanisms to maintain stable yield. Due to the negative synergism when salt and water stress coexist, the homogeneous limitations of both are weakened. Thus, the key to maintaining yields under combined water and salt stress may depend on indirectly enhancing tolerance to oxidative damage through abscisic acid, rather than focusing on accumulating low molecular weight osmoregulants and antioxidant enzymes to directly alleviate homogeneous limitations. Also, under combined salt and water stress, insufficient irrigation may have a greater impact on morphological characteristics than high salinity. The above results contribute to a deeper understanding of the process of adapting C. esculentus to combined salt and water stress.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

Cyperus esculentus / salt stress / water stress / yield / abscisic acid

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51909266), the National Agricultural Major Science and Technology Project (NK2022180401-1), and the Project of Joint Research Institute of China Agricultural University in Aksu. We thank Linlin Zhang of Associate Professor Minghan Yu’s student for her assistance in sample collection and processing, as well as to Xiangya Sun and Linman Zhang from China Agricultural University for their assistance in data analysis.

Compliance with ethics guidelines

Jing Xu, Lang Liu, Fang Kang, Boyuan Liu, Minghan Yu, and Keyu Fa declare that they have no conflict of interest or financial conflicts to disclose. This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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The Author(s) 2024. Published by Higher Education Press. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)