Effect of dry stress on growth and antioxidant system in three chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) cultivars

Water deficit is one of the major abiotic stresses which adversely affects plant growth and crop yield. In this study, the changes in the activity of antioxidant enzymes, growth parameters, proline and H2O2 contents and the rate of lipids peroxidation in terms of malondialdehyde in shoot and root tissues of three chickpea cultivars (Bivanij, Jam and Arman) under dry stress were investigated. Compared to the controls, dry stress resulted in the reduction of dry weights of the shoot and the root tissues in the studied three chickpea cultivars while magnitude of decrease was greater in jam cultivar comparee to the other two cultivars. Dry stress caused significant changes in proline,and Malondialdehyde (MDA) levels in shoot tissues in the studied cultivars. Bivanij and Arman cultivars also showed higher activities of ascorbate peroxidase, proxidase, catalase and glutathione reductase in the shoot tissues in comparison with jam. These higher antioxidant activities may help the tolerant cultivars to decrease oxidative damages of dry stress to membrane lipids as compared with sensitive cultivar. On the basis of results of this study, it can be concluded that: (1) Bivanij and Arman were tolerant but Jam was sensitive to dry stress (2) dry tolerance of Bivanij and Arman cultivars might be closely related to the increased capacity of the antioxidative system to scavenge reactive oxygen species and thus suppress lipid peroxidation under dry stress.