Moringa bio-stimulant promoted cotton production via coordinating anti-oxidants and physiological behaviors to combat reproductive drought stress

Experimental trials were conducted in the Experimental Research Area, Institute of Agronomy, Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan, Pakistan, having treatments; foliar spray of bio-stimulants in various induced terminal reproductive drought stress conditions during the two consecutive years of 2023 and 2024. Foliar spray of moringa bio-stimulants significantly improved the morphological development attributes including plant populations (6.40%), plant height (4.84%), harvested boll plant ^− 1 (2.70%), average boll weight (18.20%), seed cotton yield (9.72%) under flowering drought followed by fruit’s formation drought during the second year as compared to the first year of the trials. An increasing trend was observed in the physiological attributes including specific leaf weight (11.70%), relative water contents (25.41%), relative cell injury (2.24%), relative membrane permeability (12.26%) after the moringa treatment as compared to seaweed, nitro-phenolates, hydro in control as well as flowering drought condition during the year 2024 than 2023 of the experiments. Among bio-stimulants, moringa foliar spray triggered the higher production of anti-oxidants including total soluble proteins (14.10%), superoxide dismutase (12.61%), peroxidase (33.17%), catalase (2.18%), total phenolic contents (9.55%) under fruit’s formation drought and flowering drought than control during the year-II compared to year-I of the trials. Data revealed the significant interaction effect of applied moringa bio-stimulant improved fiber quality parameters including fiber fineness (5.82%), fiber strength (2.43%), fiber uniformity (1.09%), staple length (2.66%) under flowering drought followed by fruit’s formation drought after control conditions during the 2nd year trials than 1st year. The average both years of the economic analysis proved the cost-effectiveness of applied moringa bio-stimulant with higher net income (2252.66US$) and benefit-cost ratio (3.97) as compared to other bio-stimulant in control followed by flowering drought and fruit’s formation drought. So, it is concluded that cotton yield can be improved by using the moringa foliar spray during the unfavorable conditions of environmental drought stress condition.