Exogenous salicylic acid enhances physiological responses, nutrient uptake by metabolic adjustments to alleviate cadmium stress in rapeseed (<i>Brassica napus</i> L.) cultivars

Cadmium (Cd) is considered as one of the highly toxic and non-essential heavy metal, having no biological functions, and inhibit plant growth and development, owing serious threat to crop productivity.Morphophysio-biochemical attributes affected by bioaccumulation in the plant tissues causes phytotocicity.A promising sustainable strategies to ameliorate the cadmium stress in Brassica napus (L.) by salicylic acid remain unrevealed.Two varieties (Super Canola, Shiralee) were grown in pots, while cadmium chloride (400 m) was randomly applied three times and two levels of salicylic acid (SA) (0.25 mM) were used.Plants exposed to Cd stress significantly decreased the morpho-physiological attributes, photosynthetic pigments and minerals uptake.Results revealed that the foliar application of SA to cadmium affected plants showed significant improvement in shoot length (6%) root length (10%), shoot fresh (32%) shoot dry weights (32%), root fresh (28%) and root dry weights (35%) compared to Cd plants.Moreover, SA application showed decline in H 2 O 2 and malondialdehyde (MDA) contents through regulating the antioxidant activities (POD 60%, SOD 28%, CAT 43%).Similarly, both varieties showed recovery with SA, improved photosynthetic pigments and nutrient uptake.In conclusion, It was revealed that cadmium (Cd) significantly affects the morphological, physiological, and biochemical characteristics of plants, and can be mitigated through the application of salicylic acid (SA) for better performance.Salicylic acid was particularly effective in alleviating the negative impacts of cadmium stress on Brassica napus varieties.Overall, this research indicates that salicylic acid effective role in ameliorating stress conditions and contributes to the improvement of plant profile.