ISSN: 2574-187X
Authors: Shekhar S#, Shukla PK, Misra P and Kashyap BK*
Vigna mungo (black gram) is a leguminous crop often cultivated in many areas of tropics, for protein-rich edible seeds. Drought and salinity are the major abiotic stress which hampers the growth, development and yield of crop plants including black gram. The present study aimed to investigate the efficacy of magnetic hematite nanoparticles on the stress tolerance potential of Vigna mungo against salinity and drought stress. We found that the treatment of magnetic hematite nanoparticles (Fe2O3) helped to improve black gram tolerance to salt and drought stress under in-vitro as well as in-vivo conditions. The treated plants showed better phenotypic performance in terms of biomass accumulation imposed stress. Moreover, the photosynthetic performance was also higher in treated plants which include total chlorophyll content, stomatal conductance, and maximum photochemical efficiency of PSII as compared to the NNP (non-nanoparticle control) group grown under invivo conditions. In agreement with the results of the increased antioxidant enzyme activity, the V. mungo plants treated with nanoparticles had much less membrane damage, electrolyte leakage, and a greater relative water content and proline content. Further experiments revealed that under imposed stress, the treated V. mungo plants had significantly lower Na+ and higher K+ content which correspond to the higher K+/Na+ ratio than the non-treated stressed control plants.
Keywords: Hematite; Nanoparticles; Salinity; Drought; Ionic Homeostasis
