Improvement in fruit yield and tolerance to salinity of tomato plants fertigated with micronutrient amounts of iodine

Iodine is an essential micronutrient for humans, but its role in plant physiology was debated for nearly a century. Recently its functional involvement in plant nutrition and stress-protection collected the first experimental evidence. This study wanted to examine in depth the involvement of iodine in tomato plant nutrition, also evaluating its potential on salt stress tolerance. To this end, iodine was administered at dosages effective for micronutrients to plants grown in different experimental systems (growth chamber and greenhouse), alone or in presence of a mild-moderate NaCl-salinity stress. Plant vegetative fitness, fruit yield and quality, biochemical parameters and transcriptional activity of selected stress-responsive genes were evaluated. In unstressed plants, iodine increased plant growth and fruit yield, as well as some fruit qualitative parameters. In presence of salt stress, iodine mitigated some of the negative effects observed, according to the iodine/NaCl concentrations used. Some fruit parameters and the expressions of the stress marker genes analyzed were affected by the treatments, explaining, at least in part, the increased plant tolerance to the salinity. This study thus reconfirms the functional involvement of iodine in plant nutrition and offers evidence towards the use of minute amounts of it as a beneficial nutrient for crop production.