Salicylic acid induced salt tolerance in Gerbera jamesonii, an ornamental plant

Repeated fertigation schedules are crucial while cultivating ornamental plants in polyhouses to enhance productivity and protection from weeds/pathogens. However, excessive application of fertilizers induces salinity stress and decreases water uptake capacity of plants thereby negatively affecting their growth. Gerbera jamesonii cv Bolus, a commercially popular ornamental plant, well known for its valuable cut flowers (ranking 5th at global scale cut flower sale) suffers severely due to salinity stress in polyhouses. Pre-treatment with Salicylic acid (SA-0.5 mM and 1.0 mM) across two cultivars of G. jamesonii (yellow and white flowered) followed by NaCl treatment (200 mM) induced salt tolerance in Gerbera. The SA treatments significantly affected plant morphology, leaf dry & fresh weight, relative water content, H₂O₂, MDA, Proline and Chlorophyll content across all the treatments. In addition, a noticeable physiologically driven metabolic adjustment of antioxidative enzymes (CAT, APX, SOD, POD, and GR) demonstrated the efficacy of SA in improving salt tolerance in Gerbera. Thus, foliar spray of 0.5 mM SA may be employed as eco-friendly and cost-effective method for improving salt tolerance in Gerbera and can be extrapolated to other ornamentals.