Mitigation of Autotoxicity Stress of Tomato by Ascorbic Acid
Ascorbic acid widely present in many plant tissues is a high abundant and small molecular antioxidant. It plays an important role in protecting plant cells from oxidative damages and stimulating cell division and elongation. This experiment was carried out to explore the effects of exogenous ascorbic acid on resistance of tomato to autotoxicity. Tomato seeds were treated with substrate extracts of 3 year continu-ous tomato cropped soil, and the effects of exogenous ascorbic acid at different concentrations(0, 0.25, 0.5, 1 mmol·L-1)on the seed germi-nation and plant growth of tomato and the ultrastructure of roots were then investigated. It was found that substrate extracts suppressed seed germination, seedling growth, decreased the activities of superoxide dismutase, peroxidase, and ascorbate peroxidase, and reduced the con-tent of glutathione and ascorbic acid, but increased malondialdehyde content and relative electrolyte leakage. Compared with substrate ex-tracts, treatments with ascorbic acid at 0.25, 0.5 mmol·L-1 and 1 mmol·L-1 increased the seed germination rate, germination energy and ger-mination index, enhanced seedling root and epicotyl, elevated the protective enzyme activity and antioxidant content, decreased malondi-aldehyde content and relative conductivity. In addition, exogenous ascorbic acid could alleviate harmful effects on root structure. There re-sults indicate that supplying exogenous ascorbic acid could alleviate tomato autotoxicity caused by continuous cropping, with 1 mmol·L-1 having the best effect.