Effect of Polyethylene Glycol Pretreatment and Melatonin on Clod Resistance of ‘Khatoni’ Melon (Cucumis melo L.) Transplant

علوم باغبانی

Article 10, Volume 34, Issue 3 - Serial Number 47, November 2020, Pages 481-491   

Document Type: Research Article

DOI: 10.22067/jhorts4.v34i3.84236

Authors

Hossein Nastari Nasrabadi^* ; Seyyed Farhad Saber Ali

Torbat Jam

Abstract

 
Introduction: Melon (Cucumis melo L.) is one of the most important vegetables in Cucurbitaceae family and one of the most important economic crops in the Torbat-e Jam city (Longitude: 60 ̊48', latitude: 35 ̊31', altitude: 928 m). Growth and yield of agricultural crops are affected by biotic and abiotic environmental stresses. Cold stress can be one of the most important environmental factors reducing crops yield. Cold acclimation in plant is a complex process involving many morphological, physiological and biochemical changes, including a significant reduction in tissue hydration during cold hardening. Melatonin (MEL, N-acetyl-5-methoxytryptamine) is a conserved substance, which has been discovered in all living organisms, from bacteria to mammals. MEL regulates the growth of root, shoot, and explant, activates seed germination and rhizogenesis, and delays leaf senescence. In addition, the most frequently mentioned functions of MEL are related to various abiotic stresses such as drought, radiation, low/high temperature, heavy metals, and salinity stresses.
Materials and Methods: In order to investigate the effect of PEG priming and melatonin on cold stress resistance of melon seedlings, a factorial experiment was conducted in a completely randomized design with three replications in Torbat-e-Jam University. In this experiment polyethylene glycol 6000 was used to produce drought stress at three levels (0, 0.18 and 0.58 MPa) and melatonin was used at two levels (0 and 200 μmol). When melon seedlings were at 4 leaf stage, the amount of polyethylene glycol was added to the irrigation solution for a week and to prevent drought stress, drought stress was increased for 3 days and increased one third of the required concentration daily. Recovery was performed for three days after drought stress and during this period melatonin was added to the irrigation solution at the required concentration. Seedlings were then exposed to cold stress (T0: non-stress and T1: cold conditions). Control plants were kept in greenhouse conditions.
Results and Discussion: Comparison of the mean results showed that there was an increasing trend in proline production by increasing drought stress. The highest amount of proline (0.80 µmol g-1 FW) was recorded at the highest level of drought pretreatment with no melatonin and without cold stress (D2M0T0), and then a decreasing trend in proline production was observed. The results showed that melatonin significantly increased leaf relative water content compared to the control. Interaction effects of drought pretreatment and temperature showed that there was a trend of decrease in relative water content by increasing drought pretreatment.  Ghanbari and Sayyari (8) reported that drought pretreatment stress maintains relative water content of tomato seedlings under cold stress conditions. Drought pretreatment significantly reduced the amount of chlorophyll a and total chlorophyll. The results showed that the highest levels of drought pretreatment stress (D2) and melatonin (M1) maintained chlorophyll a under cold stress conditions. Results showed that the amount of chlorophyll b was decreased by drought pretreatment stress, but it increased by melatonin application in all compounds. Based on the results, it was found that only simple effects of treatments at 1% of probability level had significant effects on soluble sugars content. Comparison of the mean simple effects of drought pretreatment showed that under drought stress the amount of soluble sugars increased significantly and the highest sugar content was recorded at the highest drought stress level. The amount of soluble sugars in plants under cold stress also increased significantly. Melatonin application also significantly increased the amount of soluble sugars. Kabiri et al. (19) reported that the use of melatonin increased soluble sugars in Moldavian balm seedlings under osmotic stress which is similar to this study results. It was found that melatonin significantly increased phenolic compounds under stress conditions and significantly decreased electrolyte leakage.

Keywords

Electrolyte leakage; Melatonin; Polyethylene glycol; Proline; Relative humidity

References

1- Akinic S., and Losel D.M. 2009. The soluble sugars determination in cucurbitaceae species under water stress and recovery periods. Advances in Environmental Biology 3(2): 175-183.

2- Arnao M.B., and Hernandez-Ruiz J. 2014. Melatonin: Plant growthregulator and/or biostimulator during stress? Trends in Plant Science 19: 789–797.

3- Bajwa V.S., Shukla M.R., Sherif S.M., Murch S.J., and Saxena P.K. 2014. Role of melatonin in alleviating cold stress in Arabidopsis thaliana. Journal of Pineal Research 56: 238–245.

4- Bates L.S., Waldren R.P., and Teare I.D. 1993. Rapid determination of free proline for water stress study. Plant and Soil 39(1): 205-207.

5- Blum A. 1996. Crop response to drought and the interpration adaptation. Plant Growth Regulation 20: 135-145.

6- Cayuela E., Munoz-Mayor A., Vicente-Agullo F., Moyano E., Garcia-Abellan J. O., Estan M.T., and Bolarin M. C. 2007. Drought pretreatment increases the salinity resistance of tomato plants. Journal of Plant Nutrition and Soil Science 170: 479-484.

7- Dong X., Bi H., Wu G., and Ai X. 2013. Drought-induced chilling tolerance in cucumber involves membrane stabilisation improved by antioxidant system. International Journal of Plant Production 7(1): 67-79.

8- Fan J., Hu Z., Xie Y., Chan Z., Chen K., Amombo E., and Fu J. 2015. Alleviation of cold damage to photosystem ii and metabolisms by melatonin in bermudagrass. Frontiers in Plant Science 6: 925.

9- Farooq M., Wahid A., Kobayashi N., Fujita D., and Basra S.M.A. 2009. Plant drought stress: effects, mechanisms and management. Agronomy 29: 185-212.

10- Ghanbari F., and Sayyari M. 2016. Chilling tolerance improving of tomato seedling by drought stress pretreatment. Iranian Journal of Horticultural Science 48(3): 669-679.

11- Ghorbani Javid M., Moradi F., Akbari G., and Allahdadi I. 2006. The role of some metabolites on the osmotic adjustment mechanism in annual cutleaf medic [Medicago laciniata (L.) Mill] under drought stress. Iranian Journal of Crop Sciences 8(2): 90-105. (In Persian)

12- Hamada A.M. 1996. Effect of Nacl, water stress or both on gas exchange and growth of wheat. Biologia Plantarum, 38: 405- 412.

13- HassanPour J.M., Kafi M., and Mirhadi M.J. 2008. Effect of drought stress on yield and some physiological characters in barley. Iranian Journal of Agricultural Science 39: 165-177. (In Persian)

14- Hedge J.E., and Hofreiter B.T. 1962. In: R. L. Whistler & B. Miller (Ed.), Carbohydrate Chemistry. Pp.17-22. Academic Press, New York.

15- Heidari N., Pouryousef M., and Tavakoli A. 2014. Effects of drought stress on photosynthesis, its parameters and relative water content of anise (Pimpinella anisum L.). Journal of Plant Research 27(5): 829-839.

16- Helmy Y.I., Singer S.M. and El-Abd S.O. 1999. Reduction chilling injury by short term cold acclimation of cucumber seedlings under protected cultivation. Acta Horticulturae 491: 177-184.

17- Hura K., Hura T., Rapacz M., and Pazek A. 2016. Effects of low-temperature hardening on the biochemical response of winter oilseed rape seedlings inoculated with the spores of Leptosphaeria maculans. Biologia 70(8): 1011-1018.

18- Jalilian M., Dehdari M., Amiri Fahliani R., and Movahedi Dehnavi M. 2017. Effect of Cold Tolerance in Different Sugar Beet Cultivars at Seedling Stage. Enivronmental Stresses in Crop Sciences, 10(3): 475-490. (In Persisn)

19- Joshi S.C., Chandra S. and Palni L.M.S. 2007. Differences in photosynthetic characteristics and accumulation of osmoprotectants in saplings of evergreen plants grown inside and outside a glasshouse during the winter season. Photosynthetica 45: 594-600.

20- Kabiri R., Hatami A., Oloomi H., Naghizadeh M., Nasibi F., and Tahmasebi Z. 2018. Study the Effect of Melatonin on Early Growth and Some Physiological and Germination Characteristics of Seed and Moldavian Balm (Dracocephalum moldavica) Seedling under Osmotic Stress. Iranian Journal of Seed Science and Technology 7(1): 25-40.

21- Keshavarz, H., Modares Sanavi S.A.M., Zarin Kamar F., and Dolatabadian A. 2011. Effect of foliar application of salicylic acid on some biochemical traits of two rapeseed cultivars under cold stress. Iranian Journal of Crop Sciences 42(4): 723-734. (In Persian)

22- Kerepesi I., and Galiba G. 2000. Osmotic and salt stress-induced alteration in soluble carbohydrate content in wheatseedlings. Crop Science 40: 482-487.

23- Kramer P.J. 1983. Plant water relations. Academic Press, New York.

24- Krasensky J., and Jonak C. 2012. Drought, salt, and temperature stress-induced metabolic rearrangements and regulatory networks. Journal of Experimental Botany 63: 1593-1608.

25- Li X., Topbjerg H. B., Jiang D., and Liu F. 2015. Drought priming at vegetative stage improves the antioxidant capacity and photosynthesis performance of wheat exposed to a short-term low temperature stress at jointing stage. Plant and Soil 393(1-2): 307-318.

26- Ludlow M.M., and Muchow R.C. 1990. A critical evaluation of traits for improving crop yields in water-limited environments. Advances in Agronomy 43: 107–153.

27- Maali-Amiri R., and Goldenkova-Pavlova I.V. 2007. Lipiid fatty acid composition of potato plants transformed with delta 12-desaturase gene from cyano-bacterium. Russian Journal of Plant Physiology 54(5): 678-685.

28- McDonald S., Prenzler P.D., Autolovich M., and Robards K. 2001. Phenolic content and antioxidant activity of olive extracts. Food Chemistry 73: 73-84.

29- Nastari Nasrabadi H., Nemati S.H., Sobhani A., and Arooei H. 2012. Effect of mulch and interval irrigation on yield and fruit quality of tow melon cultivar of Khorasan Razavi Province. Journal of Horticultural Science 23(3): 327-333.

30- Nastari Nasrabadi H., Nemati S.H., Sobhani A., and Sharifi M. 2012. Study on morphologic variation of different Iranian melon cultivars (Cucumis melo L.). African Journal of Agricultural Research 7(18): 2764-2769.

31- Parida A. and Das A.B. 2005. Salt tolerance and salinity effects on plants: a review. Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety 60: 324-349.

32- Raghami M., Estaji A., Bagheri V., and Ariakia E. 2016. Effect of salinity and salicylic acid on some morphological traits of solanuum melongena under hydroponic system. Journal of Science and Technology of Greenhouse Culture 27: 77-87. (In Persian)

33- Sarropoulou V.N., Therios I.N., and Dimass K.N. 2012. Melatonin promotes adventitious root regeneration in invitro shoot tip explants of the commercial sweet cherry rootstocks CAB-6P (Prunus cerasus L.), Gisela 6 (P.cerasus3 P. canescens) and MxM 60 (P. avium3 P.mahaleb). Journal of Pineal Research 52: 38–46.

34- Sato F., Yoshioka H., Fujiwara T., Higashio H., Uragami A., and Tokuda S. 2004. Physiological responses of cabbage plug seedlings to water stress during low-temperature storage in darkness. Scientia Horticulturae 101: 349-357.

35- Szafranska K., Glinska S., and Janas K.M. 2012. Changes in the nature of phenolic deposits after re-warming as a result of melatonin pre-sowing treatment of Vigna radiata seeds. Journal of Pineal Research 69: 34–40.

36- Wang L.J., Jiang W.B., Hung B.J. 2004. Promoting of 5-aminolevulinic acid on photosynthesis of melon (Cucumis melo) seedling under low light and chilling stress conditions. Physiologia Plantarum 121: 258-264.

37- Yang XL., Xu H., Li D., Gao X., Li TL., and Wang R. 2018. Effect of melatonin priming on photosynthetic capacity of tomato leaves under low-temperature stress. Photosynthtica 56(3): 884-892.

38- Zhang Y.P., Xu S., Yang S.J., and Chen Y.Y. 2017. Melatonin alleviates cold-induced oxidative damage by regulation of ascorbate–glutathione and proline metabolism in melon seedlings (Cucumis melo L.). The Journal of Horticultural Science and Biotechnology 92(3): 313-324.

39- Zhu J.K. 2002. Salt and drought stress signal transduction in plants. Annual Review of Plant Biology 53: 247–273.