Soybean seeds treated with single walled carbon nanotubes (SwCNTs) showed enhanced drought tolerance during germination

Abstract

Drought cause yield loss of soybean production is the major reason to yield losing of soybean. To improve the germination and growth of soybean seeds under drought stress; We studied the effect of the single walled carbon nanotubes (SwCNTs) material in seed germination and the physiological changes occurred under drought condition, performed SwCNTs treatments in soybean (Zhonghuang 35) seeds at PEG drought stress, evaluated the germination, root and shoot length, fresh weight, the activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD), peroxidase (POD), catalase (CAT), and the contents of maleic dialdehyde (MDA), ascorbic acid (AsA) and H2O2. The results showed that under osmotic potentials of 0, -0.3, -0.6 with PEG 6000, the germination percentage of SwCNTs-treated seeds was higher than the control treatment (SwCNTs-untreated seeds). The fresh weight of SwCNTs-treated seeds were evidently higher than that of the controls under the osmotic potentials of 0, -0.3, -0.6 MPa. The root and shoot length were also longer than control in SwCNTs-treated seeds at 0,-0.3, -0.6 MPa (P