Glutathione Functions on Physiological Characters of Corn Plants to Enhance Mn-induced Corn Production

A non-protein thiol,glutathione (gsh),presents abundantly in plant and affects the growth and development of the plants. in this study,the effects of n-acetyl cysteine (nac),a precursor of gsh,on manganese (mn)-induced corn production was evaluated. different mn concentrations (0.2,1.5 and 3.0 ppm of mn),with or without 100 μm of nac,were arranged as completely randomised design with 5 replicates. results show that both nac and mn affected plant height and leaf numbers. treatment of nac increased mn-induced relative water content (rwc),photosynthesis (pn) and photosynthetically active radiation (par) in leaves of corn plants. in the mn-treated plants,chlorophyll (chl) content,chl fluorescence (fm) and quantum yield (fv/fm) were found significantly higher than the mn-untreated plants. in addition,corn plants showed improved yield and cob length in nac-treated plants in the presence of mn. thus,this study suggests that nac might improve some physiological functions of plants to enhance mn-induced corn production,with 1.5 ppm of mn showed the best results.