STUDIES ON PHYSIO-BIOCHEMICAL RESPONSE OF BIOSTIMULANTS APPLICATION TO TERMINAL HEAT TOLERANCE IN LENTIL (Lens culinaris Medik.)
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Date
2022
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DRPCAU, PUSA
Abstract
Day by day temperature is increasing due to climate change and their adverse impact
on crop cultivation and agricultural productions. According to IPCC report 2022, world is
facing various climatic vulnerabilities such as heat wave, cyclones, drought, flood etc. Heat
wave is one of the most important climatic vulnerability which is mainly affecting agriculture
at global level. Temperature required for most crop plant generally ranges between 20-30 °C
(min/max) but in case of high temperature (above 30 °C), plant growth may be stuck because
of enzyme denaturation or inactivation resulting in early maturity thereby reducing crop
yield. Heat stress mainly affects reproductive stage such as flower abortion and grain filling
thereby causing drastic reduction in yield. Biostimulant application may prove useful in
reducing the adverse effect.In this research, major focus is on terminal heat stress tolerance of
lentil and their amelioration through humic acid and seaweed extract with the objectives i) to
understand alterations in morpho-physio-biochemical characters by biostimulants
application that leads to thermo tolerance in lentil and ii) to assess yield attributes and
yield of lentil crop influenced by biostimulant application
The experiment was conducted with two genotypes of lentil viz. IPL 220 and KLS
218 in pots with two different sowing dates i.e. normal (control) and late sown (to expose the
plants to terminal heat stress) in CRD with three replications. Late sown crops were given
different treatments viz. seed priming with humic acid (SPHA), seed priming with seaweed
extract (SPSWE), foliar spray (40+60 DAS) with humic acid (FSHA), foliar spray(40+60
DAS) with seaweed extract (FSSWE), SPH+FSHA and SPSWE+FSSWE. It was observed
that there was significant reduction in leaf area, specific leaf weight, relative water content,
membrane stability index, total chlorophyll content, yield attributes (no. of flowers per plant,
no. of pod per plant, no. of seed per pod) and seed yield per plant in lentil genotypes
subjected to terminal heat stress condition over control but was improved by application of
humic acid and seaweed extract. However, lipid peroxidation, proline content and activities
of antioxidative enzymes (catalase, peroxidase and superoxide dismutase) increased during
heat stress condition but application of humic acid and seaweed extract decreased it. Among
all the treatments, SPSWE+FSSWE treatment was significantly superior in reducing the
adverse effects of terminal heat stress in lentil.
Hence, it can be concluded that application of humic acid and seaweed extract either
as seed priming or foliar spray or their combination may be useful for ameliorating terminal
heat stress in late sown lentil crop.