article · Horticulturae
This research investigated how chitosan and yeast extract, applied individually or together, could help garlic plants cope with drought conditions. Experiments over two seasons showed that drought significantly reduced garlic plant growth, including leaf numbers, height, dry weight, and chlorophyll content, while increasing markers of oxidative stress. The most severe reductions occurred under 50% normal irrigation. However, applying either yeast extract or chitosan, or their combination, notably improved these characteristics in stressed garlic plants. Specifically, the combined treatment increased plant height, ascorbic acid levels, relative water content, and chlorophyll concentrations, while regulating proline content and antioxidant enzymes, thereby reducing oxidative stress indicators in plants receiving 75% normal irrigation.
Drought is a major threat to agricultural productivity, including economically important crops like garlic. This research offers potential strategies to enhance garlic's resilience to water scarcity, which could help maintain crop yields and support food security in drought-prone regions, benefiting farmers and consumers.
This research demonstrates a potential agricultural application for improving crop resilience to drought. Farmers could use chitosan and yeast extract as biostimulants to protect garlic crops from water stress, leading to better yields. This appears to be early-stage research, showing efficacy in experimental settings, and would require further development and field trials to assess its scalability and economic viability for widespread adoption.
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Garlic is an important vegetable in terms of its economic value and also as a medicinal plant. In this study, chitosan (300 mM) and yeast extract (8 g/L) were used individually or in combination to improve the yields of garlic plants under drought conditions (i.e., 75% and 50% of the water they would normally receive from irrigation) for two seasons. Significant decreases in numbers of leaves per plant and plant height, plant dry weight, relative water content, and chlorophyll a and b concentrations were found in stressed garlic plants in both seasons. The greatest reductions in these characters were recorded in plants that received only 50% of the normal irrigation in both seasons. Levels of hydrogen peroxide, products of lipid peroxidation such as malondialdehyde, and superoxide, as well as percentages of electrolyte leakage, were elevated considerably and were signals of oxidative damage. The application of the yeast extract (8 g/L) or chitosan (300 mM) individually or in combination led to a remarkable increase in the most studied characters of the stressed garlic plants. The combination of yeast extract (8 g/L) plus chitosan (300 mM) led to increase plant height (44%), ascorbic acid levels (30.2%), and relative water content (36.8%), as well as the chlorophyll a (50.7%) and b concentrations (79%), regulated the proline content and levels of antioxidant enzymes in stressed garlic plants that received 75% of the normal irrigation, and this decreased the signs of oxidative stress (i.e., percentage of electrolyte leakage and levels of malondialdehyde, hydrogen peroxide, and superoxide).
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DOI: 10.3390/horticulturae7110510
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