Role of Ascorbic Acid on Germination Indexes and Enzyme Activity of Vicia fab Seeds Grown under Salinity Stress

The present work aimed to investigate changes in growth and some metabolic activities in NaCl-stressed bean seedlings, and assessing the role of ascorbic acid to alleviate these changes. The germination was carried out to study the response of presoaked faba bean seeds (Vicia faba cv. Misr 2) in freshly prepared ascorbic acid (50 ppm ≈ 0.3 mM; as recommended dose as described by El-Tayeb, 1995) or distilled water (control) for 4 hrs at natural environmental conditions, to salinity stress during germination period. The radicle and plumule lengths were inhibited at high dose of NaCl but, ascorbic acid application to salt-treated seeds seemed to increase radicle and plumule elongation. The radicle and plumule fresh and dry weights were gradually decreased with increasing NaCl concentrations but, a noticeable increase of radicle and plumule fresh and dry weights were reached in seedlings treated with ascorbic acid. The pigment biosynthesis was substantially affected by salt treatment. Addition of ascorbic acid to stressed seedlings more or less furthered the inhibitory effects of salinity. Salinity enhanced the accumulation of reducing sugars in both radicle and plumule of Vicia faba seedlings as compared with control. Ascorbic acid treatment furthered the stimulatory effects of NaCl. Salinity gradually lowered the protein content of plumules. Ascorbic acid treatments raised the accumulation of protein contents in radicle to a great extent compared to those subjected only to NaCl. Plumule alkaloid content was lowered by low and moderate levels of NaCl. Coupling ascorbic acid to salt treated seeds induced a highly significant increase in alkaloid content of plumules compared to its corresponding controls. Sodium chloride treatments to Vicia faba seeds for two days caused a drastic suppression of α- and β-amylase activities. Ascorbic acid application to non-salinized seeds seemed without effects whereas, the salt-treated seeds showed more or less furthered the same effect of salinity. From the previous results we can observed that ascorbic acid achieved a better results during germination indexes.