Author(s):

Sujatha Edupuganti, Lalitha R and S Anuradha

Abstract: The present study shows that Chickpea plants under water stress, unstressed plants treated with exogenous EBL and SA exhibited the significant increase in phsio-biochemical changes over the normal control plants. Co-application of EBL and SA enhanced the plant height in drought stressed plants significantly by 23.76% (0.0345 p≤0.05) in comparison with stress control than their individual application. Application of EBL and SA to drought stressed plants improved the root length by 11.52% and 15.15% respectively in comparison with stress control. Exogenous application of EBL and SA reversed the drought stress effect on dry mass accumulation. EBL and SA more significantly improved the RWC content (by 57%; 0.0197 p≤0.05) than their individual applications compared to stress control. No significant effect of EBL and/or SA was observed on H₂O₂ level in chickpea plants in comparison with untreated control. There was no effect on membrane upon exogenous application of EBL and/or SA to untreated plants. About 53.25% (0.0321 p≤0.05) improvement in soluble protein content was recorded for unstressed plants treated with EBL plus SA when compared with control, indicating the enhanced effect of combined application. Combined EBL+SA alone application was found to be more effectively increased the free proline levels than their individual treatments (58.4%; 0.028 p≤0.05 vs 26.76%; 0.0462 p≤0.05 and 17.52%; 0.0561 p≤0.05 respectively) over the proline levels of unstressed control plants. EBL and SA alone treatments also increased the glycine betaine content considerably in chickpea plants but their combined impact was more on glycine betaine accumulation (23% by EBL, 14.46% by SA and 27.48% by EBL+SA respectively) in comparison with untreated control. Effect of EBL and/or SA on SOD, CAT, POD, APX and GR enzyme activities of chickpea plants under drought stress at reproductive stage and stress free conditions were significantly increased. Co-application of EBL and SA alone exhibited the significant enhancement of AsA levels (39.2%; 0.098 p≤0.05) than their respective individual treatments compared to the control plants. Combined application of EBL+SA alone accounted for the marked increase in the GSH levels (14.4%) compared to the control plants.

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