Author(s)

Defang Zeng, Xinrong Luo

School of Resource and Environmental Engineering, Wuhan University of Technology, Hubei Key Laboratory of Mineral Resources Processing and Environment, Wuhan 430070, P.R. China.

Seedling period is an important stage of plant growth. This research was mainly to analysis the influence of chitosan on wheat seedling growth and physiological mechanisms under drought stress. The results showed that the group coated with chitosan significantly improved the growth index such as germination rate, wet weight, root length, root active, and impacted physiological indices such as superoxide dismutase (SOD), peroxidase (POD) and catalase (CAT)), the content of malwondialdehyde (MDA) and chlorophyll compared with CK under drought stress. Activities of POD, CAT and SOD increased and then decreased, the content of MDA increased under drought stress. But. variation rates of the group coated with chitosan were slower than that of CK, which indicates that chitosan can significantly improve anti-oxidant enzymes activity to clear timely active oxygen and reduce the content of MDA so as to alleviate the degree of damage in the drought stress and make seedlings grow better. The results also showed that chitosan improved chloro-phyll content than that of CK, which demonstrated that chlorophyll content significantly influenced the photosynthetic efficiency of the mutant and added wheat above ground biomass and the field experiment results showed that chitosan increased yield 13.6% than that of CK.

Biologicalstress; Chitosan; Drought Stress; Protective Enzyme; Physiological Features

D. Zeng and X. Luo, "Physiological Effects of Chitosan Coating on Wheat Growth and Activities of Protective Enzyme with Drought Tolerance," Open Journal of Soil Science, Vol. 2 No. 3, 2012, pp. 282-288. doi: 10.4236/ojss.2012.23034.