Stimulation Effect of Alginite on Rhodiola rosea L. in vitro Growth

Abstract

Stimulating the growth of plants, increasing their productivity, and resistance to stress factors are important tasks facing scientists and producers of agricultural products. Different compounds of natural origin can be used as biostimulants. Such chemicals as humic, fulvic, and salicylic acids, mineral elements, amino acids, chitosan, vitamins, poly-, and oligosaccharides are the typical components of biostimulants. They affected not only plant growth. Biostimulants also improve biosynthetic activity, including chlorophyll synthesis, and accumulation of plant metabolites. Alginite, founded in Slovakia in Maar near Pinciná village northeast of Lučenec, was studied as a plant growth stimulator. The application of biostimulants to medicinal plants allows increasing in their biomass and productivity. The effect of alginite on in vitro growth of Rhodiola rosea L. plants and their antioxidant activity has been analyzed in this study. Adding 1 or 10 mL.L^-1 of MS medium alginite extract solution diluted to the concentration of 1% resulted in intensive plant growth. Shoots weight increased 4.48–6.64-fold compared to the control. Adding alginite extract solution also stimulated root growth (3.00–5.58-fold). Despite the decrease in the specific content of flavonoids in the plants, grown on media with alginite, the total content of flavonoids in these plants was higher than in the control ones due to a significant increase in biomass. The antioxidant activity of the samples grown on the alginite medium was higher than that of the control plants. Thus, alginite, a compound of natural origin, can stimulate the growth of R. rosea and increase the bioactivity of these plants.