Salt stress in fruit growing

Salt stress, resulting mostly from the use of water with elevated salts for irrigation, is a prevalent abiotic disorder in agroecosystems.
However, due to climate change and increasing tendency to reuse waste waters in irrigated agri-food production, salt stress and induced negative environmental implications are expected to become more pronounced, notably in fruit growing.
Some of the most widely consumed fruits, such as citruses, strawberries, and avocados, belong to the most salt-sensitive crops with the lowest salinity threshold (~1 dS m^-1). Prolonged accumulation of salts (Na⁺, Cl^–) in the soil leads to a cultivar of primary (osmotic stress) and secondary (ion imbalances/toxicity, formation of reactive oxygen species) physiological imbalances, which negatively affect fruit growth and productivity.
The impact of salt stress on fruit crops depends on many agro-environmental factors, notably; fruit crop species/cultivar, stage of growth and development, salinity duration/level, rootstock type, soil and water management strategy.
To alleviate salt stress in fruit growing, there is a wide range of sustainable measures and approaches, including the application of modern irrigation/drainage systems, management of seawater intrusion and groundwater level, selection of salt-tolerant species/genotypes, application of microbial inoculation and mycorrhiza, grafting with salt-tolerant rootstocks, soil and water conditioning (application of organic and mineral soil amendments, desalination). Further research on salt stress in fruit growing is essential to develop effective and sustainable solutions that can help growers to maintain productivity in the face of climate change and environmental degradation.

V Balkan Symposium on Fruit Growing

G. Ondrasek

salinity, salt sensitive crops, climate change, soil and water management

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2026.1449.2