Abstract
As an alternative to chemicals, the use of phytohormones and growth regulators is considered as a novel method of enhancing the yield, quality parameters and nutritional capacity of fruit crops. Physiological responses and changes in quality attributes, yield, and phytochemicals of pomegranate fruits in response to foliar spray with different concentrations of methyl jasmonate (MeJA) at different growth and development stages were studied. MeJA in a concentration dependent manner, from 0.1 to 0.5 mM, substantially increased fruit total antioxidant and phenylalanine ammonialyase activities, total phenolics, ellagic acid, punicalagin, and tannic acid contents, sweetness, total soluble solids, whole fruit, aril and peel weights, firmness and juice content at harvest. MeJA substantially decreased fruit respiration rate and titratable acidity. Compared to the control, fruits from the trees treated with 0.5 mM MeJA showed 133% increase in aril weight, 141.4% increase in peel weight, 101% increase in fruit weight, and 24.7% increase in juice content (p ≤ 0.01). As a novel finding, the results showed that multiple spray of pomegranate trees and fruits with 0.5 mM MeJA is as an effective and practical strategy to enhance the yield, quality, and phytochemical contents of pomegranates.
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The authors wish to thank Urmia University and Fars Agricultural Research and Natural Resource and Education Center for supporting the work.
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The work presented is a part of MM Ph.D. thesis carried out under supervision of MA and BK. All authors have contributed in experiments and in preparation of the manuscript. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
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Asghari, M., Merrikhi, M. & Kavoosi, B. Methyl Jasmonate Foliar Spray Substantially Enhances the Productivity, Quality and Phytochemical Contents of Pomegranate Fruit. J Plant Growth Regul 39, 1153–1161 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00344-019-10050-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00344-019-10050-x