Salt stress response in three pea species (Pisum arvense, P. sativum and P. fulvum) in vitro cultures

Abstract

Salinity is one of the major abiotic factors limiting plants productivity. Processes, such as seed germination, seedling growth and vigor, vegetative growth, flowering, and fruit set, are adversely affected by high saltconcentrations, ultimately causing diminished economic yield and also quality of products. Shoots of micropropagated Pisum fulvum, P. sativum and P. arvense were treated with 75, 120, 150 and 200 mMNaClin order to study pea tissues capacity to tolerate salt stress and their antioxidant capacity. We used the phenol content and DPPH antioxidant assay as oxidative damage indicators. Results showed that salt stress caused slower plant growth, leading to an increase in lipid peroxidation and a decrease in total chlorophyll in pea tissues. Further, results showed that P. fulvum is to be considered as potentially less sensitive to high NaCl concentrations in comparison to P. sativum and P. arvense and could represents a gene pool which could be used for improving the characteristics of field pea.