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Functional Plant Biology Functional Plant Biology Society
Plant function and evolutionary biology
RESEARCH ARTICLE

Impact of exogenous melatonin foliar application on physiology and fruit quality of wine grapes (Vitis vinifera) under salt stress

Yuanyuan Li A , Congcong Zhang B , Xu Lu B , Haokai Yan B , Guojie Nai B , Meishuang Gong A , Ying Lai A , Zhihui Pu A , Li Wei A , Shaoying Ma https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7912-7968 C * and Sheng Li https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0432-9578 A B *
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A College of Life Science and Technology, Gansu Agricultural University, Lanzhou 730070, China.

B College of Horticulture, Gansu Agricultural University, Lanzhou 730070, China.

C Laboratory and Base Management Center, Gansu Agricultural University, Lanzhou 730070, China.

* Correspondence to: lish@gsau.edu.cn, mashy@gsau.edu.cn

Handling Editor: Honghong Wu

Functional Plant Biology 51, FP24019 https://doi.org/10.1071/FP24019
Submitted: 22 January 2024  Accepted: 26 April 2024  Published: 14 May 2024

© 2024 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing

Abstract

Soil salinisation is an important abiotic stress faced in grape cultivating, leading to weakened plant vigour and reduced fruit quality. Melatonin as a novel hormone has shown positive exogenous application value. Therefore, this study used wine grape (Vitis vinifera) ‘Pinot Noir’ as a test material to investigate the changes of foliar spraying with different concentrations of melatonin on the physiology and fruit quality of wine grapes in a field under simulated salt stress (200 mmol L−1 NaCl). The results showed that foliar spraying of melatonin significantly increased the intercellular CO2 concentration, maximum photochemical quantum yield of PSII, relative chlorophyll and ascorbic acid content of the leaves, as well as the single spike weight, 100-grain weight, transverse and longitudinal diameters, malic acid, α-amino nitrogen and ammonia content of fruits, and decreased the initial fluorescence value of leaves, ascorbate peroxidase activity, glutathione content, fruit transverse to longitudinal ratio and tartaric acid content of plants under salt stress. Results of the comprehensive evaluation of the affiliation function indicated that 100 μmol L−1 melatonin treatment had the best effect on reducing salt stress in grapes. In summary, melatonin application could enhance the salt tolerance of grapes by improving the photosynthetic capacity of grape plants under salt stress and promoting fruit development and quality formation, and these results provide new insights into the involvement of melatonin in the improvement of salt tolerance in crop, as well as some theoretical basis for the development and industrialisation of stress-resistant cultivation techniques for wine grapes.

Keywords: comprehensive evaluation, correlation analysis, fruit quality, melatonin, physiology, principal component analysis, salt stress, wine grape.

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