Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

• Sanaz Yousefi ¹
• Mansour Gholami ²
• Hassan Sarikhani ³

¹ Department of Horticultural Science, Faculty of Agriculture, Bu-Ali Sina University, Hamedan

² Department of Horticultural Sciences,, Bu-Ali Sina University

³ Department of Horticultural Science, Bu-Ali Sina University, Hamedan, Iran.

Abstract

Recently, melatonin was proved to be a candidate hormone that could increase the cold and heat stress of the plant. Cold stress is important abiotic stress for plants in nature. In this study, in order to investigate the effect of exogenous application of melatonin on some physiological traits related to cold stress on the strawberry cultivar ‘Paros’ a pot experiment with three replications was performed in a completely randomized design. Strawberry plants pre-treated with 100 μM melatonin were subjected to freezing stress treatment (-9◦C for 3 h without cold acclimation) after two weeks some physiological traits (proline, carbohydrate, total flavonoid, chlorophyll content, ion leakage, hydrogen peroxide, content of water, malondialdehyde, and total phenol) related to cold stress in plant leaves were measured. The results showed that melatonin treatment has a significant effect on some physiological traits (proline, carbohydrate, total flavonoid, chlorophyll content, ion leakage, and hydrogen peroxide) in the strawberry plant under freezing stress. Proline, carbohydrate, total flavonoid, and chlorophyll content were significantly enhanced, and a significant reduction was observed in ion leakage and hydrogen peroxide in melatonin-pre-treated plants. In this experiment, melatonin treatment had no significant effect on the relative water content, malondialdehyde, and total phenol. According to the results of our study, exogenous application of melatonin may be effective to improve freezing tolerance in strawberry plants after two weeks of application.

Keywords

• Osmolites
• Cold stress
• Ion leakage
• Melatonin

Main Subjects

• Physiology