Impact of Salicylic Acid on Growth, Biochemical, and Yield Characteristics of brinjal (Solanum melongena L.) cv. Ajay under Salinity Stress

The global food security is significantly influenced by salt stress which is a major restriction affecting the productivity and yield of agricultural and horticultural crops. The adaption of appropriate agronomic mitigation approaches can effectively manage the adverse impacts of sanity stress. A field experiment was conducted at the Experimental Research Farm of Sanjeev Agrawal Global Educational University, Bhopal (MP), during over two summer seasons (2024 and 2025), to determine the effects of four salinity levels (350, 1500, 2500, and 3500 ppm) and three salicylic acid concentrations (1.0, 1.5 and 2.0 mM) on the growth and yield characteristics of brinjal ( Solanum melongena L) cv. ‘Ajay’. The findings revealed that augmenting salinity concentrations up to 3500 ppm significantly decreased plant height, leaf numbers, fruit numbers in the plant physical characteristics. The salinity stress also adversely affected fruit biochemical characteristics comprising total leaf chlorophyll content, carotenoids content, relative water content, and fruit N, P, and K concentrations, ultimately resulting in a decreased in total yield. Nevertheless, the salinity levels of 350 ppm (control) and 1500 ppm demonstrated no significant effect on leaf area, fruit length, total leaf chlorophyll content, fruit phosphorus content, and total yield. In contrast, augmenting salinity levels up to 3500 ppm resulted in greater accumulation of leaf sugars, proline, electrolyte leakage, fruit TSS and ascorbic acid content in compared to the control. Consequently, the application of 1.5mM salicylic acid can effectively mitigate salinity stress in brinjal and improve overall yield.