Wenzhong Huang¹ , Kaiwen Liang^1,2

1 Biomass Research Center, Hainan Institute of Tropical Agricultural Resouces, Sanya, 572025, Hainan, China
2 Agri-Products Application Center, Hainan Institute of Tropical Agricultural Resouces, Sanya, 572025, Hainan, China
Author    Correspondence author
Biological Evidence, 2026, Vol. 16, No. 3   
Received: 02 Apr., 2026    Accepted: 10 May, 2026    Published: 17 May, 2026

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Saline-alkaline stress is gradually becoming a major factor limiting agricultural productivity because it simultaneously causes osmotic stress, ion toxicity, nutrient precipitation, and high-pH damage within the same soil environment. Under this background, proso millet (Panicum miliaceum L.) has gained renewed attention. This study integrates current evidence on how proso millet achieves tolerance under saline-alkaline conditions through coordinated strategies at the morphological, physiological, biochemical, and molecular levels, and further discusses how rhizosphere microbiome reshaping strengthens these response mechanisms. The saline-alkaline tolerance of proso millet depends on the integrated coordination of root structural plasticity, osmotic adjustment, Na+/K+ homeostasis, antioxidant defense, and cell wall remodeling mechanisms.

The study also analyzes grain metabolic reprogramming in proso millet under saline-alkaline stress, including changes in the composition of amino acids, phenolic acids, flavonoids, organic acids, and antioxidant compounds, and discusses their potential significance for nutritional quality and functional food development. Finally, the study evaluates the application potential of proso millet in saline-alkaline land utilization, ecological restoration, low-input agriculture, and diversified food and feed systems. Rhizosphere microbiome reshaping is not a secondary result of saline-alkaline tolerance in proso millet, but rather a key component of the tolerance formation process itself, and it represents an important future research direction for breeding, microbiome engineering, and the design of climate-adaptive cropping systems.

Proso millet (Panicum miliaceum L.); Saline-alkali stress; Rhizosphere microbiome; Ion homeostasis; Antioxidant defense; Functional metabolites; Climate-resilient agriculture