Impact of Commercial Seaweed Liquid Extract (TAM®) Biostimulant and Its Bioactive Molecules on Growth and Antioxidant Activities of Hot Pepper (Capsicum annuum).

Mohamed Ashour,Ahmed Gaber,Mostafa E Elshobary,Gamal A G Ammar,Abdallah Tageldein Mansour,Walaa F Alsanie,Shimaa M Hassan,Rania El-Shenody

doi:10.3390/plants10061045

Abstract

Bioactive molecules derived from seaweed extracts are revolutionary bio-stimulants used to enhance plant growth and increase yield production. This study evaluated the effectiveness of a commercially available seaweed liquid extract, namely, True-Algae-Max (TAM®), as a plant growth stimulant on nutritional, and antioxidant activity of Capsicum annuum. Three concentrations of TAM® (0.25, 0.5, and 1%) of various NPK: TAM® ratios were investigated via foliar spray, over 2017 and 2018 cultivation seasons, under greenhouse conditions. TAM® is rich in phytochemical compounds, such as ascorbic acid (1.66 mg g−1), phenolics (101.67 mg g−1), and flavonoids (2.60 mg g−1) that showed good antioxidant activity (54.52 mg g−1) and DPPH inhibition of 70.33%. Promoting measured parameter results stated the extensive potentiality of TAM® application, in comparison with conventional NPK treatment. Yield and composition of C. annuum were significantly improved in all TAM® treated groups, especially the TAM0.5% concentration, which resulted in maximum yield (4.23 Kg m−2) and significant amounts of profuse biological molecules like chlorophyll, ascorbic, phenolic compounds, flavonoids, and total nutrients. Compared to the NPK control treatments, C. annuum treated with TAM0.5% improved the total antioxidant activity of hot Pepper from 162.16 to 190.95 mg g−1. These findings indicate that the extract of seaweed can be used as an environmentally friendly, multi-functional biostimulant in the agricultural field for more sustainable production, in addition to reducing the use of hazardous synthetic fertilizers.

Highlights

The utilization of traditional mineral fertilizers has been increasing dramatically due to the rapid growth in the global population, and constantly augmented food demand [1]
Crude TAM® extract was tested for antioxidant activities (Figure 1)
Total phenolic compounds showed the highest content of 101.67 mg g−1, while total flavonoid compounds, and ascorbic acid showed very little content of 2.60 and 1.66 mg g−1, respectively

Summary

Introduction

The utilization of traditional mineral fertilizers has been increasing dramatically due to the rapid growth in the global population, and constantly augmented food demand [1]. The effective application is the use of biostimulants in the form of mixtures of phytochemicals that could induce plant growth and yield while they improve protection against biotic and abiotic stresses, without any drawbacks [4,5,6,7]. Marine organisms are rich in phytochemical biomolecules with diverse biological activities [8,9,10,11,12,13,14]. In this context, seaweeds would have been wielded as biostimulants [5,6,15,16]

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion