Abstract
BACKGROUND: Salt stress is a major abiotic constraint in cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.), reducing biomass, photosynthesis, and genomic stability. Grafting onto salt-tolerant Cucurbita rootstocks is a promising strategy to enhance plant resilience. Recently, machine learning (ML) has provided new opportunities to capture complex trait interactions and identify key predictors of stress tolerance. RESULTS: We evaluated two cucumber cultivars (Cagla F1, Minimix F1) grafted onto four interspecific Cucurbita maxima × Cucurbita moschata rootstocks (TZ148, Devrim, Cremna, Kublai) under 0 vs. 100 mM NaCl for 30 days in a soilless fertigation system. Morphological, physiological, and molecular traits were evaluated, including biomass accumulation, chlorophyll content (SPAD) and incident photosynthetically active radiation (PAR), and genomic template stability (GTS) using ISSR markers. Salt stress reduced growth and biomass (leaf FW - 56%, root DW - 74%) and lowered SPAD and relative water content (RWC); grafting-especially with TZ148 (and to a lesser extent Kublai)-mitigated these losses by maintaining chlorophyll content (SPAD) and biomass under salinity. Grafted combinations, especially TZ148/Cagla, maintained higher stability (GTS: 88%, GC: 0.07), confirming the protective role of grafting. ML approaches, including Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Random Forest (RF), clearly separated control vs. salinity and, while grafting types showed only partial separation, RF consistently ranked root/stem fresh weight, SPAD, leaf area, and fruit weight as top predictors. CONCLUSION: Grafting significantly improved cucumber tolerance to salinity by sustaining biomass, photosynthetic capacity proxies (SPAD), and genomic integrity. ML-based analyses added predictive power and biological interpretation, confirming grafting with appropriate rootstocks as a sustainable strategy for cucumber production in saline nutrient solution conditions.
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Claims 8
Claim · model-written summary
Salt stress reduced cucumber leaf fresh weight by 56%.
- Taxon
- cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.)
Cucumis sativuse1 - Treatment
- Salt stresse0
- Outcome
- leaf FWe0
- Direction
- reducede0
- Value
- 56%e0
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Salt stress reduced growth and biomass (leaf FW - 56%, root DW - 74%)”
e1“cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.)”
Claim · model-written summary
Salt stress reduced cucumber root dry weight by 74%.
- Taxon
- cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.)Cucumis sativuse1
- Treatment
- Salt stresse0
- Outcome
- root DWe0
- Direction
- reducede0
- Value
- 74%e0
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Salt stress reduced growth and biomass (leaf FW - 56%, root DW - 74%)”
e1“cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.)”
Claim · model-written summary
Salt stress lowered cucumber SPAD and relative water content.
- Taxon
- cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.)Cucumis sativuse1
- Treatment
- Salt stresse0
- Outcome
- SPAD and relative water content (RWC)e0
- Direction
- lowerede0
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Salt stress reduced growth and biomass (leaf FW - 56%, root DW - 74%) and lowered SPAD and relative water content (RWC)”
e1“cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.)”
Claim · model-written summary
Grafting, especially with TZ148, maintained cucumber chlorophyll content and biomass under salinity.
- Taxon
- cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.)Cucumis sativuse1
- Treatment
- grafting-especially with TZ148e0
- Outcome
- chlorophyll content (SPAD) and biomasse0
- Direction
- maintaininge0
- Qualifier
- under salinitye0
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“grafting-especially with TZ148 (and to a lesser extent Kublai)-mitigated these losses by maintaining chlorophyll content (SPAD) and biomass under salinity”
e1“cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.)”
Claim · model-written summary
Grafted combinations, especially TZ148/Cagla, maintained higher genomic template stability of 88%.
- Taxon
- cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.)Cucumis sativuse1
- Treatment
- TZ148/Caglae0
- Outcome
- stabilitye0
- Direction
- highere0
- Value
- 88%e0
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Grafted combinations, especially TZ148/Cagla, maintained higher stability (GTS: 88%, GC: 0.07)”
e1“cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.)”
Claim · model-written summary
PCA and RF separated control and salinity conditions.
- Taxon
- cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.)Cucumis sativuse1
- Outcome
- separated control vs. salinitye0
- Comparator
- control vs. salinitye0
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“ML approaches, including Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Random Forest (RF), clearly separated control vs. salinity”
e1“cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.)”
Claim · model-written summary
Grafting types showed only partial separation in ML analyses.
- Taxon
- cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.)Cucumis sativuse1
- Outcome
- partial separatione0
- Comparator
- grafting typese0
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“grafting types showed only partial separation”
e1“cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.)”
Claim · model-written summary
RF ranked root and stem fresh weight, SPAD, leaf area, and fruit weight as top predictors.
- Taxon
- cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.)Cucumis sativuse1
- Outcome
- top predictorse0
- Comparator
- root/stem fresh weight, SPAD, leaf area, and fruit weighte0
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“RF consistently ranked root/stem fresh weight, SPAD, leaf area, and fruit weight as top predictors”
e1“cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.)”
The same questions in other papers
salinity · physiology: water · Cucumis sativus (cucumber)Positive and negative results
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See all 11 papers →Claims are grouped by organism, treatment and what was measured or targeted. A paper counts as positive when any of its claims in the group is positive.