Effects of cinnamaldehyde on growth characteristics of tomato seedlings under NaCl stress

Abstract

In order to investigate the effects of cinnamaldehyde (CA) on salt tolerance of tomato seedlings, we used tomato ‘Cooperative 903’ as experimental material, and investigated the characteristics of germination and seedling growth of tomato under NaCl (100 mmol·L-1) stress compared with the treatment of adding CA (100 μg·L-1). We set up four groups of treatments in the experiment: Control (CK, distilled water), NaCl (100 mmol·L-1), NaCl+CA（100 mmol·L-1 NaCl + 100 μg·L-1 CA）, and CA（100 μg·L-1). The results were as follows: (1) With the application of CA, the germination potential and the germination rate of tomato seeds were both improved. The root length and fresh weight of tomato seedlings were also significantly increased under NaCl (100 mmol·L-1) stress. (2) CA could effectively alleviate the excessive accumulation, oxidative damage and cell death of total ROS caused by salt stress in roots of tomato seedlings. To sum up, CA can improve the salt tolerance of tomato during germination and seedling stage by alleviating the degree of oxidative damage of seedlings, and CA has the potential in field production as a new preparation.

Keywords

• tomato(solanum lycopersicum)
• cinnamaldehyde
• nacl stress
• growth characteristics
• salt tolerance