The role of phytohormones in alleviating salt stress in crop plants

Phytohormones are chemical messengers produced in one part of plant and translocated to the other parts, where they play critical roles in regulating plant responses to stress at extremely low concentration. Phytohormones are natural products and they called plant growth regulators, when they are synthesized chemically. Plants are usually subjected to environmental factors such as drought or high soil and water salinity. The reduction in plant growth exposed to saline environments could be due to either the effects of specific ions on metabolism or adverse water relations. Different strategies are being employed to maximize plant growth under saline conditions. One of them is to produce salt tolerant genotypes of different crops. Attempts to improve tolerance to salinity through conventional plant breeding methods are time consuming, laborious and depended on existing genetic variability. In addition, many attempts have been made to overcome this disorder, including proper management and exogenous application of plant growth regulators. This article presents a review of the role of abscisic acid (ABA), indole acetic acid (IAA), cytokinins (CK), gibberellic acid (GA), brassinosteroids (BR), jasmonates (JA), salicylic acid (SA) and triazoles (TR) in alleviating salt stress in crops.