Volume 59, Issue 330, June 2023

Effects of nickel toxicity and tolerance in seedling growth of Lycopersicon esculentum Mill. and Helianthus annuus L.

Shumaila Fazal¹, Muhammad Zafar Iqbal², Muhammad Shafiq³

¹Department of Botany, University of Karachi, Karachi, 75270, Pakistan
²Department of Botany, University of Karachi, Karachi, 75270, Pakistan
³Department of Botany, University of Karachi, Karachi, 75270, Pakistan

ABSTRACT

The impact of nickel salt on the seedling development of two important agriculture crops viz. Lycopersicon esculentum and Helianthus annuus belonging to family Solanaceae and Compositeae were observed. A significant reduction in seedling and root length and leaves number of L. esculentum with nickel treatment at higher concentrations 75 and 100 ppm. At the level of 100 ppm or 150 ppm nickel was found phytotoxic and harmful to shoot growth of L. esculentum and H. annuus as compared to control. There were no significant effects on leaf area of both plant species by Nickel at 25-100 ppm. The treatments of nickel at similar concentrations decrease seedling growth and development performance of H. annuus. Meanwhile, experiment also showed maximum decrease in seedling fresh weight of L. esculentum and H. annuus with nickel at 150 ppm. It was also witnesses that a gradual increase in nickel concentrations decreases in seedling dry weight for L. esculentum and H. annuus. Nickel treatment at 25, 50, 100 and 150 ppm concentration influenced on the seedling tolerance indices of L. esculentum and H. annuus. L. esculentum showed low percentage of tolerance (51.92 %) to nickel treatment at 150 ppm in H. annuus. Whereas, the lowest percentage of tolerance (44.03 %) to nickel treatment at 150 ppm was found in L. esculentum as compared to control. The result of this study confirm that nickel treatment consistently contributes the high level of toxicity to seedling of H. annuus than L. esculentum.

Keywords: Nickel toxicity, Lycopersicon esculentum Mill., Helianthus annuus L

Discovery, 2023, 59, e63d1242

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Published: June 2023