Published in Scientific Papers. Series B, Horticulture, Vol. LXVIII, Issue 2
Written by Ștefănică OSTACI, Cristina SLABU, Alina Elena MARTA, Mihaela COVAȘĂ, Iulia MINIAȚĂ, Carmenica Doina JITĂREANU
Bitter cucumber (Momordica charantia L.) is an annual tropical plant in the family Cucurbitaceae, cultivated worldwide for its bitter fruits that are used both for food and for its many medicinal properties. Salinity is a widespread problem globally and is constantly growing. This limits plant growth and biomass production, especially in arid, semi-arid and tropical areas. To adapt to new environmental conditions, plants can accumulate or consume different metabolites. In this work, proline and aromatic amino acids were determined by the spectrophotometric method. To carry out the determinations, two varieties of bitter cucumber and three experimental lines were used that were treated with saline solutions of different concentrations. Following the analyzes carried out, a tendency to increase the amount of proline was noticed in the variants treated with saline solutions compared to the control, and in the case of aromatic amino acids, a tendency to their decrease was observed proportional to the increase in the concentration of saline solutions. The determinations made highlight the degree of resistance of the studied genotypes to saline stress and the preferential accumulation of metabolites.
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