Seed priming with brassinolide improves lucerne (Medicago sativa L.) seed germination and seedling growth in relation to physiological changes under salinity stress

Abstract

Salt stress is an important constraint to lucerne (Medicago sativa L.) production in many parts of the world. Seeds of 3 lucerne varieties, cvv. Victoria, Golden Empress, and Victor, were used to investigate the effects of seed priming with 5 µm/L brassinolide on germination and seedling growth under a high level of salt stress (13.6 dS/m NaCl solution). The results showed that germination percentage, germination index, and vigour index of lucerne seeds primed with brassinolide were significantly higher than those of the non-primed seeds under salinity stress in each variety. Seed priming with brassinolide significantly increased the shoot fresh weight, shoot dry weight, and root dry weight in 2 varieties, and significantly increased the root length and root vigour in each variety. It also significantly increased the activities of antioxidant enzymes, peroxidase (POD), superoxide dismutase (SOD), and catalase (CAT), in Victoria and Victor seedlings. During seedling growth, the primed seeds significantly reduced the malondialdehyde (MDA) accumulation. This suggests that priming lucerne seed with brassinolide at a suitable concentration can improve germination and seedling growth under high-saline soils.

28-Homobrassinolide alleviates oxidative stress in salt-treated maize (Zea mays L.) plants

“…28-Homobrassinolide may confer tolerance to salt stress by increasing the activities of antioxidative enzymes and/or by reducing the uptake of salts as indicated by previous studies where HBL reduced the uptake of heavy metals and activated the antioxidative enzymes of Oryza sativa, Brassica juncea and Zea mays plants (Özdemir et al, 2004;Bhardwaj et al, 2007;Sharma and Bhardwaj, 2007;Arora et al, 2008). In addition, Zhang et al (2007) observed that brassinoloide treatment of Medicago sativa increased the germination percentage, fresh weight and activities of antioxidative enzymes (POD, SOD and CAT).…”

Relationships between changes of kernel nutritive components and seed vigor during development stages of F1 seeds of sh 2 sweet corn

“…After that, seeds were incubated in a germination chamber at 25 °C for 7 d. The number of germinated seeds was counted daily, and then energy of germination and germination percentage were calculated after 4 and 7 d, respectively. Based on the number of germinated seeds, germination index (GI=∑(G t /T t ), where G t is the number of the germinated seeds on Day t, and T t is time corresponding to G t in days) and vigor index (VI=GI×H s , where H s is shoot height) were calculated (Zhang S. et al, 2007;Muharrem et al, 2008). Energy of germination was the percentage of the number of germinating seeds 4 d after planting relative to the number of seeds tested.…”

Introductory Chapter: Hormonal Regulation in Plant Development and Stress Tolerance

“…ABA enables plants to survive under severe environmental factors [7] and water-deficit conditions [8]. ABA is also important for root growth and architectural modifications under nitrogen deficiency [9] and drought stress [10]. Furthermore, ABA is involved in the biosynthesis of dehydrins, osmoprotectants and protective proteins [3,11,12].…”