Abstract
The effects of exogenous application of melatonin (MEL) on promoting plant growth and alleviating environmental stresses are already known, but the potential value in crop production is still poorly understood. In this study, the effects of seed pre-soaking with MEL on winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) growth and yield were investigated in a continuous two-year pot experiment and another year of field experimentation. Results showed that seed pre-soaking with different concentrations of MEL (10, 100 and 500 μM) for 24 h increased grain yields per plant from 29% to 80% in pot experiment and increased grain yield per area from 4–19% in field experiment, compared with the controls. Further analysis showed that the beneficial effects of MEL on improving wheat grain yield can be ascribed to: (1) increased spike number by enhancing tiller number; (2) enhanced carbon assimilation capacity by maintaining large leaf area, high photosynthetic rate and delaying leaf senescence; (3) promoted growth in root system. The result of this study suggests that MEL could be considered as an effective plant growth regulator for improving grain production in winter wheat.
Highlights
Food security is one of the major policy concerns in the world because of its large population that needs to be fed, while arable land resources are limited and decreasing
Seed pre-soaking with MEL significantly improved wheat grain yield in both two growing seasons in the pot experiment (Table 1)
The MEL treatment increased yield from 29% to 40% in the 2013–2014 growing season and from 45% to 79% in the 2014–2015 growing season, compared with control
Summary
Food security is one of the major policy concerns in the world because of its large population that needs to be fed, while arable land resources are limited and decreasing. That is the case in many developing countries where food shortage is still a critical problem [1]. Any strategies for enhancing the production of these basic foodstuffs would have massive ramifications. Plant growth regulators are widely used in modern agricultural production, and their application plays an important role in increasing and securing crop yield [2]. Finding new plant growth regulators are an effective approach to improving crop yield in agriculture production [3].
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