Abstract:

This study investigated the effect of wood vinegar (WV) on seedling growth, antioxidant activity and endogenous hormone content of wheat, and discussed the influence mechanism for the application of WV as growth regulator. The effects of different concentrations of WV on morphological indexes, antioxidant characteristics and endogenous hormone content of wheat seedlings were analyzed by using water as the control group (CK). The results showed that the growth of wheat seedlings was affected by the concentration of WV via the changing of the activity of antioxidant enzymes and the content of endogenous hormones caused by the stress effect of adversity. Low concentration of WV was the slight stress condition to wheat seedling growth, which reduced the MDA content, increased the activities of POD and SOD, and increased the contents of IAA and GA₃ and decreased the content of ABA, thus promoted the growth of wheat seedlings. On the contrary, high concentration of WV caused the severe stress on the growth of wheat seedling, which increased the MDA content, decreased the activities of POD and SOD, and reduced the contents of IAA and GA₃ and increased the ABA content, resulting in the inhibition of wheat seedling growth. The regulation mechanism of WV on wheat seedling growth could be described as low concentration of WV could promote the wheat seedlings growth and high concentration could inhibit the growth, and the optimal concentration of WV on the growth of wheat seedling is 0.25 mL/L.

Key words: wood vinegar, wheat, seedling growth, antioxidant enzyme, endogenous hormone