Oilseed Brassica Responses and Tolerance to Salt Stress

Salinity interrupts osmoregulation, hinders water uptake, reduces water content, causes ionic toxicity, reduces chlorophyll content, alters stomatal conductance/movement, decreases enzymatic activity, alters transpiration and photosynthesis, disrupts the antioxidant defense system, and results in the oxidative burst. In turn, seed and oil yield is greatly declined. To overcome salinity-induced osmotic and ionic stress, plants evolve avoidance or tolerance mechanisms in order to protect the cellular components from sustaining growth and development. Ion homeostasis, vacuolar compartmentalization, accumulation of secondary metabolites, hormonal regulation, osmolytes production and by activating defensive responses, plants endure the salinity-induced damages, and enhance the stress tolerance. However, these salt-tolerant traits are greatly varied with species and genotypes as well as the extent of salt stress. Therefore, precise studies in understanding the physiology and molecular biology of stress are important to understand Brassica oilseed crops’ responses and tolerance to salt stress. In this chapter, we summarize the recent findings on the Brassica plants’ response to salt stress and later discuss the possible ways to enhance salt stress tolerance.