Vol. 10, Issue 6 (2021)

Author(s):
Imtiyaz Murtaza, Asma Khurshid, Irtiza Sidiqi, FA Khan and Ishfaq Abidi

Abstract:
The current study was carried out in the Division of Basic Sciences and Humanities, SKUAST-K, Shalimar, Kashmir J&K, during the year 2017-18 to investigate the effect of 24- epibrassinolide (EBL) pretreatments on calcium(Ca), magnesium (Mg), potassium (K) and iron (Fe) content of fenugreek sprouts as well as in leaves of plants raised from EBL pretreated seeds. The 100% viable fenugreek seeds were pre-treated for 8 hours at room temperature with 0.1µM, 1.0 µM, 2.5 µM, 5.0 µM and 10.0 µM aqueous solution of 24-epibrassinolide (EBL). Results indicated that almost each EBL concentration used in the current study improved either one or all the minerals in both germinating fenugreek seeds as well as in leaves of plants raised from EBL pretreated seeds as compared to control. In germinated seeds the 2.5 µM EBL pretreatment was found to be optimum for enhancing Ca (94 ppm) as well as Fe (300 ppm), while as 0.1 EBL increased maximally Mg (90 ppm) and K content (8700 ppm) in them. Similarly, in case of leaves collected from plants raised from EBL pretreated seed, 2.5 µM pretreatment was found to increase optimally all of the other minerals in the leaf samples except Mg. The 2.5 µM EBL pretreatment increased Ca up to 4500 ppm, Fe up to 630 ppm, K up to 1400 ppm in leaf samples, while as 0.1 EBL pretreatment increased maximally Mg content of leaf samples up to 2150 ppm. The overall results of this study clearly indicate that fenugreek seeds pretreated with EBL have beneficial effects in enhancing many fold mineral content of plants raised from them. These observations can act as a starting point for conducting similar kind of research in other crops in order to draw some logical conclusion with respect to overall improvement of nutritional status of crops.