Methyl Jasmonate Foliar Spray Substantially Enhances the Productivity, Quality and Phytochemical Contents of Pomegranate
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Methyl Jasmonate Foliar Spray Substantially Enhances the Productivity, Quality and Phytochemical Contents of Pomegranate Fruit Mohammadreza Asghari1 · Mohammad Merrikhi1 · Bijan Kavoosi2 Received: 26 June 2019 / Accepted: 29 October 2019 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2019
Abstract As an alternative to chemicals, the use of phytohormones and growth regulators is considered as a novel method of enhancing the yield, quality parameters and nutritional capacity of fruit crops. Physiological responses and changes in quality attributes, yield, and phytochemicals of pomegranate fruits in response to foliar spray with different concentrations of methyl jasmonate (MeJA) at different growth and development stages were studied. MeJA in a concentration dependent manner, from 0.1 to 0.5 mM, substantially increased fruit total antioxidant and phenylalanine ammonialyase activities, total phenolics, ellagic acid, punicalagin, and tannic acid contents, sweetness, total soluble solids, whole fruit, aril and peel weights, firmness and juice content at harvest. MeJA substantially decreased fruit respiration rate and titratable acidity. Compared to the control, fruits from the trees treated with 0.5 mM MeJA showed 133% increase in aril weight, 141.4% increase in peel weight, 101% increase in fruit weight, and 24.7% increase in juice content (p ≤ 0.01). As a novel finding, the results showed that multiple spray of pomegranate trees and fruits with 0.5 mM MeJA is as an effective and practical strategy to enhance the yield, quality, and phytochemical contents of pomegranates. Keywords Methyl jasmonate · Pomegranate · Yield · Phenolics · Aril weight · Respiration rate
Introduction Pomegranate is one of the most economically important fruits produced in the world (Heber et al. 2006). For being rich in different antioxidants and valuable phytochemicals of polyphenolic compounds, flavonoids, vitamins, and anthocyanins, the juice of pomegranates exhibit protective effects against many diseases including different cancers, vascular disorders, and inflammatory problems (Heber et al. 2006; O’Grady et al. 2014). Different phenolic components of pomegranate juice including ellagic acid, punicalagin, tannic acid and ellagitannins are reported for treatment of various ailments such as ulcer, cancers, snakebite, hepatic damage,
* Mohammadreza Asghari [email protected] 1
Department of Horticulture, Faculty of Agriculture, Urmia University, Urmia, Iran
Horticulture Crops Research Department, Fars Agricultural Research and Natural Resource and Education Center, AREEO, Shiraz, Iran
2
dysentery, diarrhea, helminthiasis, acidosis, hemorrhage, alzheimer, male infertility arthritis, obesity, and respiratory problems (Miguel et al. 2010; Fateh et al. 2013). However, the phytochemical contents of fruit are highly affected by different cultural activities and management practices during fruit growth stages (Miguel et al. 2010; Bhowmik et al. 2013; Fawole and Opara 2013). Therefore, increasing the nutritional q
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