Physiological Reactions of Sunflower Plants to Different Spices of Selenium

Abstract

Selenium (Se) is an example of an essential element becoming more and more insufficient in food crops as a result of intensive plant production in many countries. Se is an essential biological micronutrient in diet of animals and humans, and plant foods are important sources of dietary Se. It is an essential constituent of several enzymes in which it is present in the form of the unusual amino acid selenocysteine (SeCys). Then, engineering food crops to accumulate higher levels of Se would provide adequate Se to target population. In this study, two species of soluble inorganic selenium forms, selenite (Se IV ) and selenate (Se VI ) at different concentrations were investigated on sunflower plants that were growing in nutrient solutions during 3 weeks and at the end of the experiment, amounts of SLA for first and second leaves of sunflower were measured. In accordance with the results that we observed, our regarded Se concentrations in Se IV form have not been had positive effect on sunflower plants. Whereas samples that had been treated with 0.3 mg.L -1 Se VI , had the high SLA amount and for second leaves, this increase was significantly. Although high level of 0.9 mg.L -1 and 3 mg.L -1 Se VI had negative affect on growth of the samples that had been treated by them.