Melatonin as a Foliar Application and Adaptation in Lentil ( Lens culinaris Medik.) Crops under Drought Stress

Sidra Yasmeen, Abdul Wahab, Muhammad Hamzah Saleem (), Baber Ali, Kamal Ahmad Qureshi () and Mariusz Jaremko
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Sidra Yasmeen: Department of Botany, Government College University, Faisalabad 38000, Pakistan
Abdul Wahab: Shanghai Center for Plant Stress Biology, CAS Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200032, China
Muhammad Hamzah Saleem: College of Plant Science and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China
Baber Ali: Department of Plant Sciences, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad 45320, Pakistan
Kamal Ahmad Qureshi: Department of Pharmaceutics, Unaizah College of Pharmacy, Qassim University, Unaizah 51911, Saudi Arabia
Mariusz Jaremko: Smart-Health Initiative (SHI) and Red Sea Research Center (RSRC), Division of Biological and Environmental Sciences and Engineering (BESE), King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal 23955, Saudi Arabia

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 24, 1-15

Abstract: Here, we grow two different varieties of lentil (lentil-2009 and lentil-93) under different drought levels and with different applications of melatonin. Increasing the levels of soil water deficit significantly decreased numerous morphological and biochemical characteristics, including shoot length, total chlorophyll content, and transpiration rate, in both varieties of lentil. Contrastingly, drought stress increased the concentrations of malondialdehyde (MDA) and hydrogen peroxide (H 2 O 2 ), and electrolyte leakage, an indicator of oxidative damage to membrane-bound organelles. The activities of enzymatic antioxidants and osmolytes were initially increased up to a drought level of 80% water field capacity (WFC) but gradually decreased with higher levels of drought stress (60% WFC) in the soil. At the same time, the results also showed that the lentil-2009 is more tolerant to drought stress than lentil-93. The negative impact of drought stress can be overcome by the application of melatonin. Melatonin increased plant growth and biomass, photosynthetic pigments, gas exchange characteristics, and enhanced the activities of various enzymatic and non-enzymatic antioxidants and proline content by decreasing oxidative stress. We conclude that foliar application of melatonin offers new possibilities for promoting lentil drought tolerance.

Keywords: melatonin; drought stress; legume family; oxidative stress; proline (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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