IMPROVING RIPENING AND DROUGHT RESISTANCE IN SUGARCANE BY APPLICATION OF ETHEPHON

摘要

A mid-late sugarcane variety, GT15, was sprayed with 400 mg. L~(-4) ethephon on October 3, 23 and November 13, respectively. The results showed that the treatment with ethephon increased the activities of Ca~(2+)-ATPase£-Mg~(2+)-ATPase, NADP-malic enzyme, neutral invertase, polyphenol oxidase and peroxidase and decreased the activities of acid invertase in leaves as compared with the control. Ethephon significantly improved the cane quality. The sucrose contents increased by 2.14% in the ethephon treatment on October 3, by 2.93% in the treatment on October 23 and by 1.46% in the treatment on November 13 as compared with the control. The ethephon treatment increased green leaves/plant under the severe drought condition in the present experiment and the treatment on October 23 was the best, suggesting that the ethephon treatment significantly improved the drought resistance of sugarcane plants.