ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Abiotic Stress
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1600293
This article is part of the Research TopicEnhancing Crop Resilience to Salt StressView all 3 articles
Seasonal Water-Heat-Salt Dynamics in Coastal Salinized Fields: Impacts on Cotton Photosynthesis and Yield
Provisionally accepted
- 1Institute of Coastal Agriculture, Hebei Academy of Agricultural and Forestry Sciences, Tangshan, China, Tangshan, China
- 2Cotton Research Institute, Hebei Academy of Agricultural and Forestry Sciences, Shijiazhuang, China, Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province, China
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Soil moisture, temperature, and salinity critically constrain cotton production in saline soils. To understand how cotton photosynthetic characteristics and yield respond to seasonal water-heat-salt dynamics, we conducted a field study (2015)(2016) comparing mildly, moderately, and severely salinized fields. Results found that seasonal rainfall and temperature fluctuations significantly influenced soil water-salt dynamics in the 0-140 cm layer. During spring (April-May), drought maintained soil salinity above 3 g/kg, while low temperatures delayed cotton germination by over a day. In rainy season (July-August), rainfall leached salts from topsoil (0-40 cm), reducing salinity to below 5 g/kg and alleviating salt stress. Mildly saline fields exhibited superior photosynthetic performance, with leaf area index, chlorophyll content, and canopy photosynthetic rate being 1.2-1.5 times higher than in moderate/severe fields. These fields also showed extended "source-sink" organ development periods (16-28 days for "source," 4-24 days for "sink") and 13.8%-18.8% greater boll weight, ultimately achieving a seed cotton yield of 3,303 kg/ha-34.3%-120.7% higher than yields from moderate/severe fields. Our results indicate that excessive soil salinity primarily impairs photosynthetic capacity and disrupts photosynthate allocation to bolls. Strategic interventions like drip irrigation could mitigate salt stress while improving photosynthetic efficiency and yield, providing practical solutions for cotton cultivation in saline fields.
Keywords: Cotton cultivation, Saline-alkali land, Photosynthetic characteristics, water-heat-salt dynamics, soil salt-moisture movement
Received: 26 Mar 2025; Accepted: 19 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Feng, Zhang, Wang, Dong, Wang, Wu and Qi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Zhe Wu, Institute of Coastal Agriculture, Hebei Academy of Agricultural and Forestry Sciences, Tangshan, China, Tangshan, China
Hong Qi, Cotton Research Institute, Hebei Academy of Agricultural and Forestry Sciences, Shijiazhuang, China, Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province, China
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