Journal of Environmental Biology

Intervarietal variations in various oxidative stress markers and

antioxidant potential of finger millet (Eleusine coracana)

subjected to drought stress 

Arti Bartwal¹, Anjali Pande², Priyadarshini Sharma² and Sandeep Arora²*

 ¹Department of Biochemistry, Govind Ballabh Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar-263 145, India

²Department of Molecular Biology and Genetic Engineering, Govind Ballabh Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar-263 145, India

*Corresponding Author E-mail: plantstress@gmail.com

Publication Data

Paper received:

03 July 2014

Revised received:

01 December 2014

Accepted:

20 March 2015

Abstract

Drought is a major form of abiotic stress leading to lower crop productivity. Experiment was carried out for selecting the most tolerant genotype among six different genotypes of finger millet under drought stress. Seeds of six finger millet genotypes were sown in pots and grown for 35 days. After this period, drought was induced by withholding watering for stressed plants while control plants were watered regularly for comparison. Among all six different varieties of finger millet screened (PR202, PES400, PRM6107, VL283, VL328 and VL149) under varying intensities of drought stress,PRM6107 and PR202 showed highest stress tolerance by limiting excessive accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) through activation of ROS scavenging antioxidative enzymes. A 200% increase in ascorbate content was recorded in PRM6107 and PR202, while in other varieties limited increase in ascorbate content was observed. Maximum decrease in chlorophyll content was observed in VL328 (83%) while least drop was observed in VL149 (65%). Relative water content indicated that PR202 was able to retain maximum water content under stress, as it recorded least drop in relative water content (55%), contributing to its better survival under stress. In conclusion finger millet genotypes PRM6107 and PR202 possessed maximum drought tolerance potential and thus may be used for allele mining of drought tolerant genes, which can further be employed for the development of more drought stress tolerant staple crops using biotechnological approach.   

 Key words

Antioxidative enzymes, Finger Millet, Oxidative stress, Reactive oxygen species,

Relative water content

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