Sodium Nitroprusside Modulated Drought Stress and Improved Productivity and Quality of Peanuts (Arachis hypogea L.) under Skipped Irrigations

Background: Drought stress (DS) has emerged as one of the prime abiotic stresses adversely affecting the quality and productivity of peanuts worldwide, necessitating finding adequate and farmer-friendly mitigation strategies. Methods: Therefore, a multi-year field trial was carried out to optimize the exogenously applied sodium nitroprusside for boosting the yield and quality of peanuts under different irrigation regimes. The trial was comprised of five DS levels imposed through skipped irrigations at vegetative, flowering, pod and grain formation stages, whereas there were three sodium nitroprusside (SNP) doses (100, 200 and 300 µM) along with water spray as a control treatment. Result: DS severely affected peanut yield and oil quality while foliar application of SNP improved peanut yield, yield-related traits and oil quality. The DS at the vegetative stage imparted the least adverse effects by producing higher peanut yield, hundred seed weight and pods per plant while, DS at flowering and pod formation stages seriously reduced hundred-grain weight, pod yield and seed yield of peanuts. Foliar application of 200 µM SNP improved chlorophyll, relative water content, membrane stability index, 100-seed weight, pod yield and oil quality compared with other treatments. Contrastingly, the 300 µM SNP dose remained superior by recording significantly higher oil and protein contents. Based on these findings, foliar feeding of 200 and 300 µM SNPmight be recommended to peanut growers for boosting yield and quality (oil and protein content) of peanut respectively and it might be developed as a potent strategy to attain sustainable peanut yield under DS conditions.