Effect of seaweed extract application on reducing chromium toxicity in cowpea (Vigna unguiculata L.)

Subject Areas : Crop Production Research

keyvan esmaeeli ¹ , omid deghpor ² , reza monem ³

1 - دانش آموخته کارشناسی ارشد، گروه زراعت، واحد یادگار امام خمینی )ره( شهرری، دانشگاه آزاد اسلامی، تهران، ایران
2 - گروه زراعت، واحد یادگار امام خمینی )ره( شهرری، دانشگاه آزاد اسلامی، تهران، ایران
3 - گروه زراعت، واحد یادگار امام خمینی )ره( شهرری، دانشگاه آزاد اسلامی، تهران، ایران

Received: 2019-11-24 Accepted : 2020-04-23 Published : 2020-05-30

Keywords: Yield, Seaweed extract, Chromium toxicity, Cowpea Grain,

Abstract :

 In order to investigate the effect of seaweed extract application on the reduction of toxicitydue to heavy metal chromium (Cr) stress in cowpea (cv. Kamran), a pot experiment wasconducted in Shahre rey region in summer 2019. The research was a factorial experimentat the basis of completely randomized design with 8 treatments and 3 replications. In thisexperiment, the first factor was Cr stress at two levels including concentrations of 0 and 50mg/kg of Cr from potassium dichromate source (K2Cr2O7) and the second factor was theapplication of seaweed extract (Ascophyllum nodosum) at four levels including noapplication, pre-treatment for 12 hours, two and three stages foliar application at theconcentration of 7 mL/L. According to the results of this study, Cr stress (50 mg/kg)reduced number of pods per plant, number of seeds per pod, 100 seed weight, grain yield,biomass and harvest index. On the other hand, application of seaweed extract improvedthe above traits under Cr stress. In this study, the highest seed yield per plant (38.58 g)was obtained from control treatment with three-stage foliar application of seaweed extractand the lowest grain yield per plant (7.64 g) was recorded in Cr stress conditions with noapplication of seaweed extract. In other words, three-stage foliar application of seaweedextract increased grain yield by 90 and 94% in both non-stress and Cr stress conditions,respectively. Therefore, based on these findings, three-stage foliar application of seaweedextract can be used to improve growth and yield of cowpea under non-stress and Cr stressconditions.