Abstract
Abstract: Poor germination and low seedling growth of stevia (Stevia rebuadiana Bertoni) are common problems in the cultivation of the plant. On the other hand, salinity is one of the abiotic environmental stresses that reduce the performance of the product. The objective in this study was to assess the effect of nutri-priming with selenium (Se), iron (Fe) and boron (B) on stevia seed germination indices and physiological characteristics in sodium chloride (NaCl) salinity condition (0, 30, 60 and 90 mM). Results indicated that the effect of salinity in nutri-priming were significant on germination percentage, germination rate, germination uniformity, germination value, seedling length, seedling vigor index, total chlorophyll, free proline content and enzymatic activity of catalase (CAT) and superoxide dismutase (SOD). Salinity stress decreased the percentage and rate of germination and seed vigor, however, nutri-priming reduces the adverse effects of salinity stress. Salinity also reduced the amount of chlorophyll content, in spite of all that this decrease was very low in terms of nutri-priming with Se, Se+Fe and Se+Fe+B in high salinity level (90 mM). Salinity stress increased proline content and antioxidant enzyme activities of CAT and SOD, that nutri-priming especially with the Se more increased. The finding of this study leads to the conclusion that nutri-priming with nutrients, especially Se and Fe increased the antioxidant capacity of the plant to improve germination and seedling growth of stevia under salinity stress.
Highlights
Stevia (Stevia rebaudiana Bertoni.), known as a honey leaf, is a perennial plant belonging to the family Asteraceae and native to Paraguay (Kumar-Pal et al, 2013)
Germination percentage The results showed the effect of salinity, nutri-priming and interaction of these two factors was significant on stevia seed germination percentage (Table 2)
One of purpose this study was to evaluate the effect of salinity on seed germination and physiological indices Stevia seedlings, that the results showed salinity have adverse effects on germination indices and reduced the percentage and rate of germination, seedling length, and seed vigor index (Table 3)
Summary
Stevia (Stevia rebaudiana Bertoni.), known as a honey leaf, is a perennial plant belonging to the family Asteraceae and native to Paraguay (Kumar-Pal et al, 2013). The plant has a sweet taste due to the presence of diterpene Steviol glycosides (SV glys). Stevioside and Rebaudioside-A (Reb A) are dominant glycoside compositions of the plant which makes that plant to be even 300 times sweeter than sucrose (Hajihashemi and Ehsanpour, 2014). Because of self-incompatible flowers, the crossing is usually carried out by wind and insects (Raeeszadeh and Gharineh, 2014). The plant has low fertility percentage and low seed formation (Liopa-Tsakalidi et al, 2012) which limits its large-scale cultivation (Raji et al, 2015). Self-compatibility is reported by some researchers (Goettemoeller and Ching, 1999)
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