Role of glycine betaine and salicylic acid in improving growth vigour and physiological aspects of droughted wheat cultivars

Abstract

A pot experiment was conducted to evaluate the beneficial effect of foliar application of glycine betaine (10mM), grain presoaking in salicylic acid (0.05 M) and their interaction on two droughted wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) cultivars (sensitive, Sakha 94 and resistant, Sakha 93). In general, water stress caused noticeable increases in root length, number of adventitious roots, soluble sugars and nitrogen but a massive reduction in fresh and dry masses of root, growth vigor of shoot, leaf area, pigments content, polysaccharides, protein-N and total nitrogen in both wheat cultivars. Vice versa, exogenous application of GB, SA or their interaction could counteract the adverse effects of drought by improvement of growth vigor of root and shoot, leaf area, retention of pigments content, increasing the concentration of organic solutes (soluble sugars and soluble nitrogen) as osmoprotectants, keeping out the polysaccharides concentration and/or stabilization of essential proteins in both wheat cultivars. Finally, we can conclude that GB, SA or their interaction could improve the drought tolerance of both two wheat cultivars particularly the sensitive ones.

Keywords

• Triticum aestivum L
• Drought
• Glycine betaine
• Salicylic acid
• Flag leaf