National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS)
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PRINT ISSN : 2319-7692 Online ISSN : 2319-7706 Issues : 12 per year Publisher : Excellent Publishers Email : editorijcmas@gmail.com / submit@ijcmas.com Editor-in-chief: Dr.M.Prakash Index Copernicus ICV 2018: 95.39 NAAS RATING 2020: 5.38 |
Soils in dry environments, including Egypt, suffer from irrigation water shortage. To enhance crops performance under these adverse conditions, antioxidants that proved to support plants are applied. The vitamin ɑ-tocopherol (TOC) is an antioxidant compound that plays a crucial role in improvement of drought tolerance in plant species. Therefore, two field experiments were conducted in 2015 and 2016 seasons to assess the potential effect of foliar application with 0.5 and 1.0 mM TOC on growth, yield and its quality, concentrations of leaf photosynthetic pigments, osmoprotectants and nutrients, and water use efficiency in soybean plants grown under three irrigation levels measured as I100 = 100%, I80 = 80% and I60 = 60% of crop evapotranspiration (ETc). Results showed that under deficit irrigation (DI), growth, photosynthetic efficiency, concentrations of osmoprotectants and nutrients, yield and its quality, and tissue water status (relative water content and membrane stability index) were improved, while electrolyte leakage was reduced by TOC application. These results were positively reflected in plant performance and water use efficiency under water stress conditions. Therefore, TOC could be a promising material to use to mitigate the adverse effects of DI, allowing water savings of 20% – 40% without any detrimental effect on soybean performance.
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