Biochemical and Antioxidant Responses of Borage Seedlings in Saline Environments

Although borage (borago officinalis l.) is a valuable medicinal plant, noinformation is available on the responses of this plant to salinity. for this reason, it isnecessary to determine responses of this plant to salinity.objective: since germination and early growth stage is one of the most critical phases ofplant life under salinity condition; this experiment was conducted to determine someresponses of borage to salinity at the seedling stage.methods: this experiment was laid out in a completely randomized design with threereplications and four salinity treatments, including distilled water (ec=0.0ds m-1) andthree saline water conditions with ec of 5.0, 10.0 and 15.0 dsm-1.results: with increasing ec, the content of free proline, soluble carbohydrates andproteins were increased. moreover, the activities of superoxide dismutase (sod),peroxidase (pod), catalase (cat), and polyphenol oxidase (ppo) enzymes weresignificantly increased. although seedlings dry weight and emergence percentage weredeclined with increasing ec, the seedlings had markedly growth/survival under salinityconditions.conclusion: the survival and little reduction in emergence under salinity conditions(12.5%) indicated that borage was a salt tolerant species at the early growth stage. thistolerant is certainly due to the enhancement of antioxidant enzymes activities andcompatible solutes content.