SOIL SALINITY EFFECT ON SOYBEAN PLANT: A COMPREHENSIVE MORPHOPHYSIOLOGICAL STUDY

Abstract

Soil salinity is a big barrier to soybean production in many areas of the world. The world’s salinity-affected areas are rising year after year. Therefore, the salinity stress events tend to become more severe in soybean production, thereby, the authors introduced a critical review of the literature to understand the changes in the different traits exposed to salinity stress and their mitigation strategies for the salinity stress of soybean cultivation. Under salinity stress, the soybean plant showed various morphological, physiological, biochemical, and structural changes. Results indicated that salinity stress adversely affects the soybean emergence, nodulation, growth and development, seed quality, oil and protein content of seed as well as yield. Effective salinity management strategies in soybean cultivation are the use of different exogenous components, organic and nano-fertilizers, breeding approaches and application of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. Further studies require on the underlying screening of salt-resistant soybean genotypes and their use in molecular breeding.