Author(s):

N Deepa Devi and T Arumugam

Abstract: Vegetables are one of the most important crops in human nutrition. Worldwide vegetable cultivated area has increased at about 25% during the last 10 years. Now-a-days salinity is one of the major abiotic stresses that reduce seed germination, plant growth and crop productivity. Ensuring adequate food production is the major issue in the context of an increasing human population, limit to the areas of new land that can be cultivated and loss of existing cultivated lands to abiotic stresses. Of these stresses, salinity consistently has the greatest impact in reducing the area of cultivated land, often due to inappropriate irrigation techniques. To increase food supply, there is a need to produce salt-tolerant crops, which can grow successfully on salt-affected lands. Among crops, vegetables possess a central position in the human diet because of their nutritional value providing vitamins, carbohydrates, proteins, and mineral nutrients. There are many vegetable crops of local importance around the world but others that are very widely cultivated. All of these vegetable crops are affected by salinity more or less severely. Like other crops, considerable crop to crop variation in vegetable crop salinity tolerance has been reported (Maas, 1990). Salinity affects every aspect of vegetable crop development including their morphology, physiological function and yield. Although efforts have been made to understand the mechanisms of salt tolerance in vegetable crops, less attention has been paid to these than to the staple crops. Where attempts have been made to improve salt tolerance of vegetables, the strategies have ranged from exogenous application of fertilizers, compatible solutes or plant growth regulators, plant growth promoting rhizhobacteria, grafting, development of new varieties with tolerance and gene introgression from wild species to use of advanced molecular techniques for genetic modifications. This article focuses on the responses of different vegetables crops to salt stress and the strategies being used to enhance their salt tolerance.

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