Determination of the most important traits affecting the electrolyte leakage of wild pear (Pyrus biossieriana Buhse) under drought stress conditions using multivariate statistical methods

Wild pears are an important rootstock for different pear cultivars and considering it is nearly tolerant to drought stress it is necessary to use different treatments to increase its tolerance to drought stress. Electrolytes leakage is an important and effective factor in response to drought stress and related traits. For this purpose, a factorial experiment was designed in a randomized complete blocks design with three replications to identify the traits affecting electrolytes leakage. These traits were studied in 12 treatments including different levels of drought stress and different concentrations of brassinosteroids on wild pears in spring and summer of 2017 in greenhouse conditions. The result showed a positive significant correlation between proline content (0.83**), malondialdehyde (0.98**), hydrogen peroxide and electrolyte leakage. The correlation for dry weight of root, leaf and stem, height growth, chlorophyll a, b and carotenoid was significantly negative. Stepwise regression analysis indicated that chlorophyll a, leaf dry weight, height growth and hydrogen peroxide were the most important effective traits on electrolytes leakage and showed 99% of total variance. Based on the path analysis results, the traits of electrolytes leakage and height growth and chlorophyll a showed the maximum positive direct and significant at p