Abstract
The impact of biochar and chitosan on barley plants under drought stress conditions was investigated during two field experiments. Our results confirmed that drought stress negatively affected morphological and physiological growth traits of barley plants such as plant height, number of leaves, chlorophyll concentrations, and relative water content. However, electrolyte leakage (EL%), lipid peroxidation (MDA), soluble sugars, sucrose and starch contents significantly increased as a response to drought stress. Additionally, 1000 grain weight, grains yield ha−1 and biological yield significantly decreased in stressed barley plants, also anatomical traits such as upper epidermis, lower epidermis, lamina, and mesophyll tissue thickness as well as vascular bundle diameter of flag leaves significantly decreased compared with control. The use of biochar and chitosan led to significant increases in plant height, number of leaves, and chlorophyll concentrations as well as relative water content; nevertheless these treatments led to significant decreases in electrolyte leakage (EL%) and lipid peroxidation (MDA) in the stressed plants. Moreover, anatomical and yield characters of stressed barley plants were improved with application of biochar and chitosan. The results proved the significance of biochar and chitosan in alleviating the damaging impacts of drought on barley plants.
Highlights
Barley is one of the most significant cereal crops of the Poaceae family and it is an important crop in Egypt and all over the world
Under drought stress condition the exposed plants to drought conditions showed significant reduction in plant height, number of leaves, and leaf area/plant compared with control plants (Figure 1)
The plants that received one irrigation showed the minimum concentrations of chlorophyll a and chlorophyll b as well as relative water content compared with the plants that received two irrigations and control plants
Summary
Barley is one of the most significant cereal crops of the Poaceae family and it is an important crop in Egypt and all over the world. Drought stress is one of the most detrimental factors seriously affecting the growth and production of many plants mostly during the flowering phases [9]. Significant diminution in the growth parameters were recoded such as number of leaves, leaf area stem length in various plants [10,11]. The crop yield and productivity were significantly affected under drought stress [12] in barley plants. The plants have many mechanisms in response to abiotic factors such as drought, salinity, cold and heat stress. These mechanisms are associated with morphological, physiological, and biochemical changes [14]. The damaging effects on plants are associated with oxidative damage in the plant cells [15,16,17] resulting in increases in lipid peroxidation, reactive oxygen species (ROS), and electrolyte leakage [6,7,18,19]
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