Abstract
Abiotic stresses adversly effect the growth and physiological processes in crop plants, which ultimately lead to significant reduction in the yield. Based upon emerging threats of salinity and drought stresses, present investigation was done to evaluate the effect of foliar applied salicylic acid (SA) on the growth, gas exchange attributes and leaf pigments in wheat under water and salt stress. The experiment was conducted in a warehouse upon three commercial wheat varieties (Galaxy-2013, Punjab-2011 & Millat-2011) treated with two levels of foliar application of SA (Control, SA @ 100 mg/L) under CRD-factorial arrangement which was replicated thrice. According to the results, all the growth attributes, pigments and gas exchange parameters were significantly (p <= 0.01) affected by the salt and drought stresses, and foliar application of SA remarkably remediated the adverse effects of stresses and improved the studied traits in all wheat cultivars. Elevated levels of chlorophyll a (2.31 mg g-1 FW), chlorophyll b (3.24 mg g-1 FW) and total chlorophyll content (5.55 mg g-1 FW) were found in SA treated plants under both types of stresses. Similarly, the maximum leaf photosynthetic rate (5.33 & micro;mol CO2 m-2 s-1), leaf transpiration rate (3.47 mmol H2O m-2 s-1) and stomatal conductance (0.85 mmol H2O m-2 s-1) were recorded by Glaxy-2013 under foliage applied SA (100 mg/L. In conclusion, wheat cultivar Glaxy-2013 surpassed all other cultivars by exhibiting significantly improved growth attributes salt and drought stresses.