Abstract
The influence of vegetal extracts derived from red grape, blueberry fruits and hawthorn leaves on Zea mays L. plant growth and the activity of phenylalanine ammonia-lyase (PAL), a key enzyme of the phenylpropanoid pathway, was investigated in laboratory experiments. The extracts were characterized using FT-IR and Raman spectroscopies in order to obtain a pattern of the main functional groups. In addition, phenols content was determined by HPLC, whereas the content of indoleacetic acid and isopentenyladenosine hormones was determined by ELISA test and the auxin and gibberellin-like activities by plant-bioassays. The treated maize revealed increased root and leaf biomass, chlorophyll and sugars content with respect to untreated plants. Hawthorn, red grape skin and blueberry at 1.0 mL/L induced high p-coumaric content values, whilst hawthorn also showed high amounts of gallic and p-hydroxybenzoic acids. PAL activity induced by hawthorn at 1.0 mL/L had the highest values (11.1-fold UNT) and was strongly and linearly related with the sum of leaf phenols. Our results suggest that these vegetal extracts contain more than one group of plant-promoting substances.
Highlights
European agricultural and food safety policies are promoting the safe use of agricultural inputs with low environmental impact in response to consumer demands for healthy food products
In this work we explore the applications of vegetal extracts from hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna Jacq.) leaves, red grape (Vitis vinifera L.) skin material and blueberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea L.) fruits on the growth of maize plants and their effects on sugar and phenolic metabolism
Three vegetal extracts manufactured by ILSA S.p.A. (Arzignano, Vicenza, Italy) were used: hawthorn (Crataegus monogina Jacq.) leaves were produced by fully controlled enzymatic hydrolysis, and the red grape skin material from common grapevine (Vitis vinifera L.) and blueberry fruits (Vaccinium vitis-idaea L.) were obtained by cool extraction [39]
Summary
European agricultural and food safety policies are promoting the safe use of agricultural inputs with low environmental impact in response to consumer demands for healthy food products. In the last few years plant growth biostimulants, being active at low dosages, have had rapidly increasing success on the agricultural inputs market as a “softer” agricultural practice to replace or complement mineral fertilizers [1,2,3]. They represent a relevant alternative solution for improving crop quality while reducing environmental pollution. Most phenolic compounds have shown important properties such as their ability to act as antioxidants in protecting the body against reactive oxygen species or as regulators of Molecules 2016, 21, 205; doi:10.3390/molecules21020205 www.mdpi.com/journal/molecules
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