The objective of the present investigation was to study the effect of drought stress, UV-B radiation and the combined effects of UV-B and drought stresses on two cultivars of gourd (mashhadi and hamadani) seedling. the gourd plants were grown with diurnal regime of 16h light and 8h dark and temperature of 22/260C (night/day). The relative humidity was 60% and average of photosynthetically active radiation was 150 µmol.m-2.S for 25 days. Then, 25-days-old seedlings were divided in to four groups: the control and three groups subjected to stress conditions: UV-B radiation and drought stress conditions, UV-B radiation and drought stresses combined. Results showed that shoot and root length, shoot and root dry and fresh weight, leaf total area, leaf RWC, chlorophyll a, b and carotenoid contents which were irradiated either with UV-B, drought stress or combined of two stresses have reduced significantly when compared with control. The physiological parameters indicate that with this experiment situation UV-B stress has stronger stress effectors than drought on the growth of seedling of both cultivars. The results suggested that co-stresses of supplementary UV-B radiation and drought synergistically functioned and one of them could alleviate the inhibitory effects of another under the condition of arid and semiarid loessial soils.
Hagihosseinlo N, Hosseini sargein S, Jamei R. The study of interactive effects of UV-B Radiation and drought stress on some physiological traits of two cultivar of gourd (Cucurbita pepo L.). 3 2016; 1 (2) :16-26 URL: http://ijppb.lu.ac.ir/article-1-22-en.html