Abstract

The eggplant genotypes (Burdur Merkez, Burdur Bucak, Kemer ve Giresun) of which salt and drought tolerances were determined before by examining changes in some of the morphological and physiological characteristics were used as materials. In the studies carried out in controlled greenhouse conditions, eggplant plants were subjected to different levels heavy metal irrigation at 20 days after sowing (Control: 0 ppm; I. mixture: 0.2 ppm Cu+0.01 ppm Cd+5 ppm Pb+2 ppm Zn; II. mixture: 0.4 ppm Cu+0.02 ppm Cd+10 ppm Pb+4 ppm Zn). Young plants were harvested after forty days at heavy metal treatment and the fresh and dry shoot weight, fresh and dry root weight, shoot and root length, leaf areas, chlorophyll, malondi-aldehyde (MDA), superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione reductase (GR) were determined. The eggplant plants were adversely affected by heavy metal applications. In parallel to increase the dose, heavy metal mixtures led to a reduction in values of fresh and dry weight of shoot and root, stem and root length, leaf area. MDA and antioxidative enzyme activities increased in plants irrigated with water containing a mixture of heavy metal. As a result of this study, tolerant Burdur Merkez and Burdur Bucak genotypes showed a better performance compared with the salt sensitive genotypes Giresun and Kemer. The plants are thought to use similar mechanisms for resistance to abiotic stresses such as drought and heavy metal stress.

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