Abstract
Tomatoes are the most important and grown vegetable crop in the world. The salicylic acid (SA) application could improve crop yields due the positive physiological effects of this plant growth regulator. Thus, this study aimed to evaluate the possible effects of SA application on leaf regarding the intensification of antioxidant enzymes activities, chlorophyll a fluorescence, gas exchange, and tomato production against environmental stress. This experiment was conducted by the use of Colossal tomato hybrid in a protected environment between July and December 2019. Therefore, a randomized block design with five SA doses was used, as follows: 0; 0.5; 1; 1.5, and 2 mM. Then, applications were performed weekly from 15 to 60 days after transplantation (DAT). At the 45th and the 60th DAT, the enzymes activities were analysed, such as superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase activity (CAT) and peroxidase (POD), lipid peroxidation, proline content, chlorophyll a fluorescence, gas exchange, and plant height. At the end of the experiment, fruit weight, total and commercial production were also evaluated. Results indicated that foliar application of SA reduced the environmental stress in plants through the intensification of antioxidant system that reduced lipid peroxidation and qNP and increased the efficiency of photosystem II and ETR. Furthermore, gas exchange was also influenced by the action of SA in gs, favouring A and A/Ci. The SA dose between 0.5 and 0.8 mM positively enabled the total and commercial production of tomatoes. Therefore, foliar application of SA reduced oxidative damage, and increased photosynthetic efficiency and fruit production.
Highlights
Tomato is the most cultivated vegetable in the world
Results indicated that foliar application of salicylic acid (SA) reduced the environmental stress in plants through the intensification of antioxidant system that reduced lipid peroxidation and qNP and increased the efficiency of photosystem II and electron transfer (ETR)
We evaluated the chlorophyll a fluorescence, gas exchange, antioxidant enzymes activities, lipid peroxidation, proline, and production of tomato plants subjected to SA application
Summary
Tomato is the most cultivated vegetable in the world. In 2019, the international tomato production was 180,766,329 million tons on about 5,030,545 hectares; a yield of 35.9 t·ha-1 by considering the average between field cultivation and protected environment (FAO 2019). In the context of vegetable production, plants are frequently subjected to unfavourable situations for their optimal development and operation caused by alterations in the environment. This set of unfavourable situations is known as environmental stress (Veobides-Amador et al 2018). Tomato crops can face some adversity, for example, high temperature, low relative humidity, pest infestations, and diseases. The response to adversity lead to reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation, that can cause a detrimental effect due to their ability to occasion lipid peroxidation of cellular membranes, protein denaturalization, pigment breakdown, carbohydrate oxidation, DNA damage, and impaired enzymatic activities (Bose et al 2014), as decrease in photosystems efficiency, reduction in the relations of gas exchange and yield loss (Campelo et al 2015; Costa et al 2015)
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