Abstract

Bread wheat is one of the most important cereal crops that improved food security at global and regional levels. In this study, the effect of salicylic acid (SA) on growth and development of wheat under salt stress was studied for two consecutive years. The experiment was conducted at Adami Tulu Agricultural Research Center during the 2021 and 2022 seasons to evaluate the application of SA leading to improvement in the growth and yield of wheat under salt stress conditions. A pot experiment was performed in Randomized Completely Block Design with three replications. Analysis of variance revealed highly significant differences among treatments for grain yield (GY), productive tiller (PT), grains per spike (GPS), spike length (SL), plant height (PH), above dry biomass (ADB), and days to maturity (DTM). The highest GY (4.62 g), PT (4.17), GPS (35.67), SL (6.42 cm), PH (51.17 cm ), ADB (9.37 g) were observed in treatments in which SA was applied, whereas early maturity date of 79.33 days was recorded in control treatment. The study proved that the application of SA improved wheat growth and yield under salt stress conditions.