Turkish Journal of Botany
Abstract
Environmental stressors such as drought, floods, salinity, extreme temperatures, and heavy metal toxicity are major threats to horticultural plants because they disrupt plant physiological mechanisms, leading to reduced yield and quality. Salicylic acid (SA) is a plant hormone that regulates various physiological and biochemical functions in plants. Moreover, it regulates hormonal balance, enhances the absorption of essential nutrients, promotes photosynthesis and the production of antistress compounds, and improves stress resistance. This comprehensive review explains several physiological and biochemical activities that are affected by SA under stressful conditions, such as stomatal regulation, antioxidant defense systems, osmotic adjustment and gene expression regulation. Altogether, this review highlights the potential of SA in managing plant adaptations to various abiotic stresses and sheds light on future SA-based approaches to enhance the resilience and yield of horticultural crops under stress conditions.
Author ORCID Identifier
FAISAL HAYAT: 0000-0001-8762-9693
XIAOYUN ZHANG: 0009-0004-2082-1890
MOHAMMED ALYAFEI: 0009-0001-9447-8448
FAREEHA SHIREEN: 0000-0002-4466-9860
UMMARA KHAN: 0000-0001-9652-1641
SUMEERA ASGHAR: 0000-0001-9215-0644
SEZAİ ERCİŞLİ: 0000-0001-5006-5687
KARTHISHWARAN KANDHAN: 0000-0001-6678-8353
MOHAMED SHETEIWY: 0000-0003-1431-939X
YALI ZHANG: 0000-0003-2060-7072
XIAOYAN LU: 0000-0002-3041-9051
DOI
10.55730/1300-008X.2877
Keywords
Abiotic stresses, antioxidants, defense system, tolerance, salicylic acid
First Page
449
Last Page
463
Publisher
The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Türkiye (TÜBİTAK)
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
HAYAT, F, ZHANG, X, ALYAFEI, M, SHIREEN, F, KHAN, U, ASGHAR, S, ERCİŞLİ, S, KANDHAN, K, SHETEIWY, M. S, ZHANG, Y, & LU, X (2025). Protective role of salicylic acid against abiotic stresses in horticultural crops: A review. Turkish Journal of Botany 49 (6): 449-463. https://doi.org/10.55730/1300-008X.2877
