SALINITY/ SALT STRESS-significance, causes, common symptoms, effects | Mamoona Ghaffar

3 min readJun 9, 2020

SIGNIFICANCE:

Salt stress is the accumulation of excessive salt contents in the soil, eventually inhibiting crop growth and leading to crop death.

Salt tolerance: Ability of plants to prevent, reduce or overcome detrimental effects of soluble salts present in their root zone

Salinity can be overcome by

1) Soil reclamation: costly, time-consuming & short-lived

2) Resistant varieties: less costly, more effective, and long-lasting but require a longer development period.

Characteristics of Plants to Salt:

Landraces more tolerant than high-yielding varieties Salt tolerance capacity differs from species to species. Different plants show differential responses to Salinity.

· Soil salinity is an issue of global importance, causing many socio-economic problems. It also results in losses of (806.4 billion rupees) per year to agriculture.

· Salinity: It is caused due to high accumulation of Calcium, Magnesium, sodium, and then anions such as SO42, NO3, CO32, and HCO3,- Cl-, etc.

· Salt stress is the accumulation of excessive salt contents in the soil which eventually results in the inhibition of crop growth and leads to crop death.

· Excess salt in the soil reduces the soil's water potential and makes the soil solution unavailable to the plants (physiological drought).

· Salinity affects most crops' agricultural production, soil physicochemical properties, and the area's ecological balance.

· Salinity:- It is Salinity with too high an accumulation of calcium, Magnesium, sodium, and then anions such as sulfate, nitrate, carbonate and bicarbonate, chloride, etc.

Excess salt in the soil reduces the water potential of the earth and makes the soil solution unavailable to the plants.

CAUSES OF SOIL SALINITY

Salinity is also categorized as primary and secondary based on its cause source. The former occurs as natural salt in the landscape, like salt marshes, salt lakes, tidal swamps, or natural salt dams. While latter results due to human activity such as urbanization and agriculture (irrigated and dryland).

Following are the factors responsible for soil salinity:

For Primary Salinity:

I. WeatheSalinityrocks

II. Capillary rise from shallow brackish groundwater

III. The intrusion of seawater along the coast

IV. Salt-laden sand blown by sea winds

V. Impeded drainage

Secondary salinization is due to human activities like:

I. Introduction of irrigation without a proper drainage system

II. Industrial effluents

III. Overuse of fertilizers

IV. Removal of natural plant cover