Том 5 № 1 (2026)

This issue of Plant Diversity of Central Asia (Vol. 5, Issue 1) highlights advances in understanding plant responses to heavy-metal stress through an integrated assessment of chromium toxicity in wheat. Featuring a study by Fayaz Asad et al., the issue evaluates two wheat cultivars, Akbar-19 and Fakhar-e-Bhakkar, exposed to increasing chromium concentrations with and without serine co-application. Using three-way analysis of variance, linear mixed-effects modelling, dose–response analysis, principal component analysis, and multivariate analysis of variance, the study reveals a clear dose-dependent decline in growth and biochemical performance. Serine provided partial mitigation, but its effectiveness varied among traits, chromium levels, and cultivars, with Akbar-19 showing greater shifts in estimated EC50 values for several responses. The first two principal components explained 74.7% of biochemical variation, while multivariate analysis confirmed significant effects of cultivar and chromium dose. Together, these findings emphasize the genotype- and dose-dependent nature of serine-mediated alleviation of chromium phytotoxicity in wheat.