CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Brassinosteroids (BRs) are steroidal compounds involved in plant growth and development. BRs are considered a class of hormone with great potential to boost crop yield andit was shown that the applications of BRs enhance plant tolerance toward different pathogens. The aim of this work was to evaluate the effect of the treatment with 24-epibrasinolide (EP24) and a brassinosteroidspirostanic analogue DI-31 (BB16) in the growth promotion of strawberry plants (Fragariaananassa).The parameters analyzed were number of leaves, leaf area, number of stolons, verdure index, root length and dry weight.For the determinations of the green index, the relative chlorophyll content was measured by using a Minolta SPAD-502 chlorophyll-meter. To determine the foliar area, photographs of all the leaflets were taken and the measurement was carried out using the ImageJ program. The plants treated with BB16 and EP24 showed a significant increase in the greenness index, number of leaves and number of stolons, with respect to the control plants. Another important observation was the increase in leaf area in response to these treatments. When analyzing the biomass, a higher root dry weight was observed in the plants treated with BB16, while the plants treated with EP24 did not show significant differences with the control plants. When evaluating the dry weight of the aerial part of the plants, it was possible to observe an increase in the plants treated with BB16 and EP24, but this increase was not significant. In this way, we can think that the increase in the total dry weight observed in response to treatment with BB16 can be attributed mainly to the increase observed in the dry weight of the root. These results suggest that BRs could be used as a new crop management strategy, achieving to increase the quality of the crops and their yields.