THE EFFECT OF WATER STRESS INDUCED WITH PEG SOLUTION ON MAIZE SEEDLINGS

Developing maize genotypes that can perform well under drought is an important goal throughout the world and in Romania, too. It is known that drought tolerance is a complex trait making the search for efficient selection traits, breeding and screening methods difficult. In winter wheat, seedling tests under controlled conditions have been successful in predicting drought or heat tolerance, but similar results have not been enough reported in maize. In this respect, we tried to develop a simple screening method to evaluate drought tolerance of maize seedlings. The experiments were conducted in growth chamber. Eighteen maize genotypes were grown under drought stress induced by polyethylene glycol 10.000 (10% PEG 10.000, inducing an osmotic potential of - 0.30 MPa). Decreasing of leaf area, root length, root volume, and dry matter accumulation showed important metabolism disturbances of maize plants grown under water stress. The possibility of using certain physiological traits as screening criteria in breeding maize programs for drought tolerance is discussed.