The effect of chitosan on morphological and biochemical indices of seedling of aging accelerated soybean seeds

To determine the effect of a chitosan on aging accelerated soybean seeds, a study was conducted based on completely randomized design in factorial experiment with three replications in 2015 Science and Research Laboratory of Shahed University, Tehran. The first factor was levels of accelerated aging including 0, 24 and 48 hours storing of seeds in saturated humidity at 41°C temperature. The second factor was chitosan different concentrations including 0, 0.25 and 0.5% w/v rates. In this experiment, morphological traits such as number of normal seedlings, seedling length, shoot relative water content of, shoot to root ratio and biochemical characteristics such as chlorophyll a and b, chlorophyll a to b ratio and the amount of carotenoids in soybean leaves were measured. Chitosan had positive significant effect on aging accelerated soybean seeds germination, also effecting on chlorophyll a and b and carotenoids amounts in soybean seedling leaves tending to morphological characteristics improvement. Chitosan has also increased the number of normal seedlings resulted from aging accelerated seeds, shoot to root fresh weight resulting in modulating destructive effect of accelerating of soybean seeds. Therefore, chitosan effecting on physiological traits and soybean seedling germination of soybean seeds could reduce the damage on soybean seeds caused by aging acceleration as a priming environment friendly and safe treatment.