1. Application of melatonin-mediated modulation of drought tolerance by regulating photosynthetic efficiency, chloroplast ultrastructure, and endogenous hormones in maize.
- Author
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Ahmad, Shakeel, Wang, Guo Yun, Muhammad, Ihsan, Farooq, Saqib, Kamran, Muhammad, Ahmad, Irshad, Zeeshan, Muhammad, Javed, Tehseen, Ullah, Saif, Huang, Jing Hua, and Zhou, Xun Bo
- Subjects
DROUGHT tolerance ,FREE radical scavengers ,CORN ,BOTANISTS ,CORN growth ,GROWTH regulators ,GRAIN yields ,PHOTOSYNTHETIC rates - Abstract
Background: Melatonin played an essential role in numerous vital life processes of animals and captured the interests of plant biologists because of its potent role in plants as well. As far as its possible contribution to photoperiodic processes, melatonin is believed to act as a growth regulator and a direct free radical scavenger/indirect antioxidant. The objective of this study to identify a precise melatonin concentration for a particular application method to improve plant growth requires identification and clarification. Methods: This work establishes unique findings by optimizing melatonin concentration in alleviating the detrimental effects of drought stress in maize. Maize plants were subjected to drought stress (40–45% FC) after treatments of melatonin soil drenching at different concentrations (50, 100, and 150 µM) to consider the changes of growth attribute, chlorophyll contents, photosynthetic rate, relative water content (RWC), chloroplast ultrastructure, endogenous hormonal mechanism, and grain yield. Results: Our results showed that the application of melatonin treatments remarkably improved the plant growth attributes, chlorophyll contents, photosynthetic rate, RWC, hormonal mechanism, and grain yield plant
−1 under drought conditions at a variable rate. Conclusion: Our current findings hereby confirmed the mitigating potential of melatonin application 100 µM for drought stress by maintaining plant growth, hormone content, and grain yield of maize. We conclude that the application of melatonin to maize is effective in reducing drought stress tolerance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]- Published
- 2022
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