Effect of foliar application of non-enzymatic antioxidants on peanut yield and its quality under induced water stress conditions [electronic resource].

Includes references.

This study was conducted during summer seasons of 2011 and 2012 in a sandy soil to study the effect of foliar application of non-enzymatic antioxidants (ascorbic acid; AsA and thiamine, Th) on peanut yield and its quality for sprinkler-irrigated peanut. A field experiment was performed at the Experimental Farm, Faculty of Agriculture, Suez Canal University at Ismailia using split plots design with two irrigation rates i.e. 1.00 (5100) and 0.70 (3570 m3 ha-1 ) of the estimated evapotranspiration and five levels of non-enzymatic antioxidants (0.0, 50 and 100ppm Th, 50 and 100ppm AsA) as the main and split plots, respectively. Drought caused significant reduction in each of leaf area index, total chlorophyll, relative water content, pod, seed and oil yields. However, water stress increased the activity of antioxidative enzymes, superoxide dismutase (SOD), ascorbate peroxidase (APX) as well as seed oil and protein contents (%). Meanwhile, exogenous application of AsA by a suitable level (100 ppm) enhanced growth, yield and its quality compared to thiamine. In the other hand, exogenous application of AsA to stressed and un-stressed plants and Th to stressed plants improved seed protein content(%) and protein molecular weight as well as number of protein bands. Application of AsA alleviated the oxidative stress damage of drought, reflected by improving above mentioned parameters as well as decreasing the activity of these above antioxidant enzymes in the leaves by approximately 14-16% compared to untreated plants under water stress. Seed, pod and oil yields were increased by about 0.65, 1.08 tlha and 326 kg!ha when plants received 100 ppm AsA under normal irrigation, respectively. Also, under water stress (3570 m3 ha-1 ), the relative increases were about 0.84, 1.10 t/ha and 426kg/ha compared to unsprayed plants, respectively. Therefore, using of 100 ppm AsA can save about 1530 m3/ha of irrigation water without reduction of pod yield and its quality .

Summary in Arabic.

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