Antioxidants and morpho-physiological responses of Rosa damascena Kashan genotype to nano-silicon under in vitro water deficit

Although Rosa damascena, a national flower of Iran, is economically important aromatic plant its growth and development has been limited by drought stress.
Nano-silicon (nSiO₂) is an efficient approach to mitigate the deleterious impacts of stress on field crops.
To investigate the effect of nSiO₂ (0, 50 and 100 mg L^‑1) in simulated drought stress by polyethylene glycol (PEG) (0, 25, 50, 75 and 100 g L^‑1) in vitro culture on quality of Rosa damascena Kashan genotype, an experiment was conducted as a completely randomized design.
As drought stress increased in intensity, leaf chlorophyll, area and number, shoot fresh/dry weight, biomass and shoot height decreased while electrolyte leakage percentage and proline content increased.
However, application of 100 mg L^‑1 nSiO₂ prevented to some extent these effects.
The highest proline content related to the explants in 100 g L^‑1 PEG without nSiO₂ while control explants treated with 100 mg L^‑1 nSiO₂ had the lowest proline content.
The positive effect of nSiO₂ was confirmed also in control plants as they had the highest leaf number and leaf area, as well as the strongest membrane stability.
Total phenol, flavonoid as well as DPPH radical scavenging activity of the leaves were increased at severe water deficit and the application of nSiO₂ further enhanced these responses.
Kashan genotype treated with 75 g L^‑1 PEG and 100 mg L^‑1 nSiO₂ likely had the same performance with the level of 50 g L^‑1 PEG without nSiO₂ which is indicating the tolerance threshold of the plant to drought.

XXXI International Horticultural Congress (IHC2022): International Symposium on Adaptation of Horticultural Plants to Abiotic Stresses

H. Seyed Hajizadeh , S. Azizi, V. Okatan

Damask rose, micro propagation, morphology, nano particle, phenolic compounds

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2023.1372.18