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Abstract
Soil salinity caused a widespread detrimental issue that hinders productivity in agriculture and ecological sustainability, while waste-derived soil amendments like biochar have drawn attention for their capacity to act as a mitigating agent, by enhancing the physical and chemical features of soil, and contributing to the recovery of agricultural waste resources. However, the information concerning biochar and salinity which affect the physicochemical characteristics of soils, crop physiology, and growth is limited. To investigate whether biochar mitigates the salinity stress on wheat crop seedlings, we grow them with salinity stress (120 mM), and biochar (20 tons ha−1), and its interactive effects. The soil properties of soil organic carbon (SOC), soil organic matter (SOM), dissolved organic carbon (DOC), and soil available phosphorus (SAP) decreased in the saline soil by 36.71%, 46.97%, 26.31%, and 15.00%, while biochar treatment increased SOC, DOC, and SAP contents by 7.42%, 31.57%, and 15.00%, respectively. On the other hand, dissolved organic nitrogen (DON) contents decreased in all the treatments compared to the control. The root growth traits, SPAD values, leaf nitrogen, photosynthetic parameters, antioxidant enzymes, and reactive oxygen species decreased in the saline treatment while increasing in the biochar and interactive treatment. Thus, these activities resulted in higher leaves and root biomass in the biochar treatment alone and interactive treatment of salinity and biochar. According to principal component analysis, redundancy analysis, and the mantel test, using biochar in conjunction with salinity treatment was found to be more effective than salinity treatment alone. The results of this study suggest that biochar can be used as a sustainable agricultural technique and a means of mitigation agent by lowering soil salinity while increasing the biomass of crops.
HIGHLIGHTS
Biochar improves the physical and nutritional quality of soil and plant function.
Salinity stress declined the physiological activities and biomass of the crop.
Biochar mitigates the salinity stress in soil and enhances the plant functioning.
Exposure to both treatments enhances the antioxidant enzyme activity and biomass.
Acknowledgment
This work was supported by the Opening Foundation of Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Pollution Processes and Environmental Criteria (2021a02), the Carbon Peak and Carbon Neutrality Technology Innovation Foundation of Jiangsu Province (BK20220030), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (32271587; 31800342; 32350410400), the Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education (NRF-2022R1I1A1A01055443), and the Senior Talent Foundation of Jiangsu University (18JDG039). The authors also extend their appreciation to the Researchers Supporting Project number (RSP2024R176) King Saud University, Riyadh, Saud Arabia.
Disclosure statement
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Correction Statement
This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.