Sadak, S. R. El-Lethy, M. Dawood
2013
Citations
0
Influential Citations
8
Citations
Journal
World Journal of Agricultural Sciences
Abstract
: Benzoic acid is a biosynthetic precursor of salicylic acid. Salicylic acid is an endogenous growth regulator of phenolic nature, which participates in the regulation of physiological processes in plants. Two pot experiments were conducted at the greenhouse of the National Research Centre, Dokki, Giza, Egypt during two successive summer seasons (2011 and 2012) to study the effect of exogenous application of benzoic acid and salicylic acid at different concentrations (100, 200 and 400 mg/l) on vegetative growth characters, photosynthetic pigments, seed yield and yield components as well as seed biochemical constituents and fatty acids composition of the yielded oils. Exogenous application of benzoic acid and salicylic acid led to marked increases in growth characters (plant height, branches and leaves number/plant as well as plant dry weight), photosynthetic pigments (chlorophyll a, chlorophyll b, chlorophyll (a+b), carotenoids and consequently total pigments). All treatments increased seed yield and its components (number and dry weight of pods/plant, seeds number/pod, seeds weight/plant and seed index) as well as seed biochemical constituents (protein, carbohydrate, oil, flavonoid and phenolic content). Different treatments improved oil quality as it affected fatty acids composition of soybean oil. Salicylic acid and benzoic acid caused increases in total unsaturated fatty acids and total essential fatty acids accompanied by decreases in total saturated fatty acids. It is worthy to mention that promotive effect of benzoic acid was more pronounced than salicylic acid in increasing most of the tested parameters of soybean plant. Moreover, benzoic acid at 400 mg/l was the most effective treatment.