Crop Salt Tolerance—Current Assessment
Abstract
An extensive literature review of all available salt tolerance data was undertaken to evaluate the current status of our knowledge of the salt tolerance of agricultural crops. In general, crops tolerate salinity up to a threshold level above which yields decrease approximately linearly as salt concentrations increase. Our best estimate of the threshold salinity level and yield decrease per unit salinity increase is presented for a large number of agricultural crops. The methods of measuring appropriate salinity and plant parameters to obtain meaningful salt tolerance data and the many plant, soil, water, and environmental factors influencing the plant’s ability to tolerate salt are examined.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Salinity can indirectly affect plants by making them more vulnerable to plant diseases, reducing crop output and quality, decreasing biodiversity, and disrupting soil ecosystems.
“It can also indirectly affect them by making them more vulnerable to plant diseases7, reducing crop output and quality8, decreasing biodiversity9, and disrupting soil ecosystems8.”
From Cold plasma technology as a pre-treatment for seed priming enhances germination and reduces salinity stress in Prosopis Koelziana (2025) · cites this paper as [7]
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Climate change impacts on soil salinity in agricultural areas
Corwin, D. L. (2021) · European Journal of Soil Science · doi:10.1111/ejss.13010 · Cited by 806 · see citing works
Plants’ Response Mechanisms to Salinity Stress
Balasubramaniam, T., Shen, G., Esmaeili, N., & Zhang, H. (2023) · Plants · doi:10.3390/plants12122253 · Cited by 740 · see citing works
Campo, S., Baldrich, P., Messeguer, J., Lalanne, E., Coca, M., & San Segundo, B. (2014) · Plant Physiology · doi:10.1104/pp.113.230268 · Cited by 330 · see citing works
Zörb, C., Schmitt, S., Neeb, A., Karl, S., Linder, M., & Schubert, S. (2004) · Plant Science · doi:10.1016/j.plantsci.2004.03.004 · Cited by 148 · see citing works
Ecosystem services, targets, and indicators for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity
Perrings, C., Naeem, S., Ahrestani, F. S., Bunker, D. E., Burkill, P., Canziani, G., Elmqvist, T., Fuhrman, J. A., Jaksic, F. M., Kawabata, Z., et al. (2011) · Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment · doi:10.1890/100212 · Cited by 113 · see citing works
The agricultural impacts of irrigation induced waterlogging and soil salinity in the Arkansas Basin
Houk, E., Frasier, M., & Schuck, E. (2006) · Agricultural Water Management · doi:10.1016/j.agwat.2006.04.007 · Cited by 93 · see citing works
Ansari, M., Shekari, F., Mohammadi, M. H., Juhos, K., Végvári, G., & Biró, B. (2019) · Acta Physiologiae Plantarum · doi:10.1007/s11738-019-2988-5 · Cited by 85 · see citing works
Shahabi, Z. M., Nasibi, F., & Noori, H. (2025) · Scientific Reports · doi:10.1038/s41598-025-11637-z · Cited by 19 · see citing works
- Authors
- Maas, E. V., & Hoffman, G. J.
- Affiliations
- Agricultural Research Service (US)
- Venue
- Journal of the Irrigation and Drainage Division
- Published
- 1977-06
- Volume
- 103
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 115-134
- ISSN
- 0044-7978 (ISSN-L)
- 2690-3296
- OpenAlex
- W1870940040
- Cited by
- 3,565
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 113 · 2025: 110 · 2024: 104 · 2023: 153 · 2022: 136 · 2021: 151 · 2020: 138 · 2019: 144 · 2018: 129 · 2017: 122 · 2016: 122 · 2015: 115 · 2014: 136 · 2013: 150 · 2012: 127
- FWCI
- 12.92
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of the Irrigation and Drainage Division (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Plant Science › Plant Stress Responses and Tolerance
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Aquatic Science › Engineering and Agricultural Innovations
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Soil Science › Irrigation Practices and Water Management
- Keywords
- crop salt tolerance, salinity, yield loss, cultivated plants, salinity measurement, soil salinity, irrigation water quality, environmental factors, plant factors
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
