Investigating of Antioxidant Enzymes and Proline Changes During the Flowering Bud Dormancy in Several Cherry Cultivars

 The ability to tolerate cold will not be possible without stopping or inducing sleep, which is one of the important steps in the life cycle of plants in temperate regions. This period is one of the important factors in preventing cold damages in winter and spring in temperate regions. Various studies in controlled conditions on plants have shown that in plants, when entering and leaving this period, various changes occur in materials such as proteins, enzymes and hormones. In order to control the harmful effects of active oxygen species, plants have defense mechanisms. Catalase, peroxidase and superoxide dismutase enzymes are a defensive team whose common goal is to defend against the destructive effects of active oxygen species. This study was carried out to determine the chill requirement and its relationship with the changes in the activity of antioxidants enzymes and proline.

 The experiment was conducted at agricultural Research Station of Khalat-Pooshan and the Laboratory of Flower Biology and Physiology of Fruit Growth in the Department of Horticulture, Faculty of Agriculture, Tabriz University in 2015-2016. Flower buds needed for testing were selected from ‘Siah Shabestar’, Zard Mashhad, Zoodras cultivars and a local genotype of sour cherry. Once a month, enough buds were harvested and until the experiments began, they were kept inside the freezer inside an aluminum foil at -80 ° C. In order to estimate the chill requirement, four replicates (4 geographic directions) from each cultivar and from each replication four branches with the same length and diameter were removed. The amount of chilling accumulation and chilling requirement in each month was calculated according to Utah model. In order to estimate fresh weight, four replicates in each cultivar were selected and in each replication five buds were selected from different parts of the branch. The statistical design used in the determination of the chill requirement was a randomized complete block design. Enzymatic and proline data were analyzed in a completely randomized design as factorial

 Chill requirement: Based on the Utah model, the chill requirement of sweet and sour cherry cultivars contains Zard Mashhad, Zoodras and Siah Shabestar were calculated 752, 780, 867 and 961 CU, respectively. There was a significant difference in the activity of superoxide dismutase enzymes between cultivars and different sampling times at 1% probability level. Siah Shabestar cultivars with the highest chill requirement had the lowest SOD enzymatic activity and Zard Mashhad and Zoodras were intermediate cultivars in terms of enzymatic activity. Sour cherries, which had the least chill requirement, showed the highest levels of SOD enzyme activity. This is consistent with the results of some researchers regarding apricot stated that the low chill apricot cultivars had the highest SOD enzymatic activity. The sour cherry had the highest amount of POX enzymatic activity with the least amount of chill requirement, and also Siah Shabestar has the least chill requirement. Like the two previous enzymes, the activity of catalase was highest in sour cherries and the lowest was observed in Siah Shabestar. In terms of the presence of free proline, there was no significant difference between the Zard Mashhad cultivars and Zoodras, while there was a significant difference between these two cultivars and Sour Cherry and Siah Shabestar. Zoodras cultivar has the highest and our cherry has the lowest amount of free proline. Between different cultivars, in terms of fresh weight of buds, there is a significant difference at 1% probability level before and after placement in the growth chamber. The increase in fresh weight of sour cherry and Zard Mashhad, Zoodras and Siah Shabestar cultivars were 25, 27, 31.5 and 33%, respectively. The highest fresh weight before and after placement in growth chamber was observed in Siah Shabestar and sour cherry was the lowest. In all the cultivars, the activity of all three enzymes were initially at maximum (369 CU), then, with the cooling of the air and the initiation of deep dormancy, the activity of these enzymes were greatly reduced (820 CU) and then again increased in the activity of this enzyme (963 CU), which is similar to other studies.

Conclusions :

The results of this study showed that the antioxidant metabolism in plants is influenced by seasonal cycle changes and enzymatic activity changes depending on temperature, so that sour cherry with the least chill requirement has the most activity of the enzyme catalase, peroxidase and superoxide dismutase and Siah Shabestar, which have the most chill requirement, have the least enzymatic activity. Accordingly, the enzymatic antioxidant system activity of the flower buds was relatively high at the beginning of the dormancy period, but decreased during the end of dormancy. Also, the amount of free proline at the end of dormancy and the stage of dormancy breaking was highest and the lowest was in the deep dormancy period.