Freshwater scarcity is a major global challenge threatening food security. Agriculture requires huge quantities of water to feed the ever-increasing human population. Sustainable irrigation techniques such as deficit drip irrigation (DDI) are warranted to increase efficiency and maximize yield. However, DDI has been reported to cause water stress in plants. The study aimed to investigate the influence of the exogenous application of salicylic acid alone (SA) or in combination with glycine betaine (GB) on the growth, yield quality, and water-use efficiency of onions under different DDI treatments (100%, 70%, and 40% field capacity (FC)). Spray treatments (sub-treatments) were as follows: T1: (distilled water), T2: (1.09 mM SA), T3: (1.09 mM SA + 25 mM GB), T4: (1.09 mM SA + 50 mM GB), and T5: (1.09 mM SA + 100 mM GB). Our results indicated that T2 slightly ameliorated the effects of water stress by improved plant heights, leaf number, pseudostem diameter, bulb quality, and nutrient content of onion bulbs, especially under the 70% FC treatment. However, T3 recorded the poorest results on leaf number, pseudostem diameter, and bulb quality under the 70% and 40% FC treatments. Generally, our results indicated that onions could tolerate moderate water stress (70% FC) without severely affecting the growth and yield of onion. In conditions where freshwater is a limiting factor, a DDI treatment of 40% FC is recommended.
Keywords: deficit drip irrigation; osmoprotectants; plant growth regulators; water stress.