**4. Conclusions and prospects**

This chapter overviewed the concept and the global status of soil salinization; highlighted the major mechanisms underlying salinity impacts in plants, and critically discussed in detail the potential approaches for making plant life easier under salinity. Notably, salinity-accrued decrease in plant-water status led to salinitymediated impairments in growth and development; ionic imbalance, impaired nutrient uptake and assimilation were argued as a result of elevated accumulation of Na+ and Cl− ; and impact on the tuning among the components of antioxidant defense system (causing oxidative stress) was cumulative resulted in severely hampered plant growth, metabolism, development and productivity. Notably, despite the fact of a very complex nature of plant salinity responses, the major approaches considered so far, have mainly focused on physiological/biochemical and agronomical (and molecular) aspects of salinity-exposed plants. Integrating these aspects with more molecular-genetic aspects, a critical crosstalk on gasotransmitters, phytohormones and mineral nutrients; intricacies therein of potential synergism and antagonism may help in understanding and getting insights into the complexity of signaling pathways. Evaluating how AMF influence the cell wall; and lipid metabolism under saline conditions will also be important.

Little success has been achieved in the field of breeding and genetic engineering of plants for their improved salinity tolerance. Exhaustive studies on the PGPRcolonization within the rhizosphere and the production of antimicrobial metabolites may also yield promising outcomes in plant salinity response and tolerance research. The use of varied plant bio-stimulants (bio-effectors) can also be employed to
