Guo Shirong

Effects of exogenous nitric oxide on growth, active oxygen species metabolism, and photosynthetic characteristics in cucumber seedlings under NaCl stress

The study was conducted by means of nutrient solution culture to investigate the effects of exogenous nitric oxide (NO) on growth of cucumber seedlings, active oxygen species metabolism and photosynthetic characteristics in cucumber leaves under 50 mmol/L NaCl stress. The results showed that 10–400 µmol/L exogenous sodium nitroprusside (SNP), especially 100 µmol/L SNP, significantly alleviated the injury to seedlings and increased seedling growth. The activity of superoxide dismutase (SOD), peroxidase (POD), catalase (CAT), and ascorbate peroxidase (APX), and the contents of photosynthetic pigments and proline also increased under 50 mmol/L NaCl stress. Similarly, net photosynthetic rate (Pn), stomatal conductance (Gs), and transpiration rate (Tr) also increased significantly. However, exogenous nitric oxide application markedly decreased membrane permeability, rate of O2.− production, the contents of malondialdehyde (MDA) and H2O2, and intercellular CO2 concentration (Ci) under 50 mmol/L NaCl stress.

Regulation of the growth and photosynthesis of cherry tomato seedlings by different light irradiations of light emitting diodes (LED)

The growth and photosynthetic characteristics of cherry tomato seedlings were investigated under seven light irradiations such as dysprosium lamps (white light; control, C), red light emitting diodes (LEDs) (R), blue LEDs (B), orange LEDs (O), green LEDs (G), red and blue LEDs (RB) and red, blue and green LEDs (RBG) with the same photosynthetic photon flux density (about 320 μmol m-2 s-1) for 30 days. Morphological appearances of seedlings were significantly different between light treatments, that is, the plants under RB and RBG were shorter and stronger than those under C, while those under O, G and R were higher and weaker. The higher carbohydrate contents were in plants containing blue treatment, B, RB and RBG. Photosynthetic pigments were shown to have significant difference under respective light irradiations of LEDs. The higher photosynthetic pigments were in leaves of seedlings containing blue light treatment, RBG, RB, B, C and G treatments, the lower the pigments were in those with R and O treatments. Net photosynthesis (Pn) was the highest in leaves of seedlings with RB and RBG and the lowest in those with G. Compared with C treatment, light compensation point and light saturation point of seedlings with R, RB and RBG increased, but those with O and G decreased. Electron transport rate (ETR), quantum efficiency of photosystem II photochemistry (ΦPSII), photochemical quenching (qP) and efficiency of excitation energy capture by open PSII reaction centres (Fv′/Fm′) in seedlings with B, RB and RBG treatments were significantly greater than those of the other treatments. Taken together, RB and RBG of LEDs were shown to be beneficial factors for the growth and photosynthesis in cherry tomato seedlings. Key words : Light-emitting diode (LED), light quality, cherry tomato, growth, photosynthetic characteristics.

Effects of exogenous spermidine on the photosynthesisof L. seedlingsunder rhizosphere hypoxia stress

With water culture, this paper studied the effects of exogenous spermidine (Spd) on the net photosynthetic rate (Pn), intercellular CO2 concentrations (Ci), stomatal conductance (Gs), transpiration rate (Tr), apparent quantum yield (Φc), and carboxylation efficiency (CE) of cucumber seedlings under hypoxia stress. The results showed that Pn decreased gradually under the hypoxia stress, and reached the minimum 10 days later, which was 63.33% of the control. Compared with that of the hypoxia-stressed plants, the Pn 10 days after the application of exogenous Spd increased by 1.25 times. A negative correlation (R2=0.473−0.7118) was found between Pn and Ci, and Gs and Tr changed in wider ranges, which decreased under the hypoxia-stress, but increased under the hypoxia-stress plus exogenous Spd application. There was a significant positive correlation between Gs and Tr (R2=0.7821−0.9458), but these two parameters had no significant correlation with Pn. The hypoxia stress induced a decrease of Φc and CE by 63.01% and 72.33%, respectively, while the hypoxia stress plus exogenous Spd application made Φc and CE increase by 23% and 14%, respectively. The photo-inhibition of cucumber seedlings under hypoxia stress was mainly caused by non-stomatal inhibition, while the exogenous Spd alleviating the hypoxia stress by repairing photosynthesis systems.