Asian Journal of Current Research

Increased contaminants and greater enriched ratios of not essential toxic substances such as cadmium (Cd) cause a variety of harmful responses in plants. The impacts on growth and development responses are genotypes and Cd-dependent. A research study was done to investigate the effects of Cadmium toxicity in Brassica juncea by selecting its five different varieties RH-725 (V₁), 45S46 (V₂), PM-25 (V₃), PM-31 (V₄) and PM-33 (V₅) exposed to four different concentration of cadmium (0.5, 1, 1.5 or 2 mg). In the present study, we proved the effect of cadmium on cultivars' morphological parameter such as: root length and shoot length, photosynthetic pigments like chlorophyll-a, chlorophyll-b and total chlorophyll and physiological growth including superoxide dismutase, ascorbate peroxidase and glutathione reductase. A reduction in the plant length, chlorophyll content and SOD content was observed with 2mg Cd in all cultivars; however significant rise in APX activity and GR contents was noted. Our findings demonstrate that cultivar PM-25 is more resistant to Cd stress, with longer plant length, a greater net photosynthetic rate and increased antioxidant activity. The five mustard cultivars were graded according to their resistance to Cd: PM-25 (V₃) > 45S46 (V₂) > RH-725 (V₁) > PM-33 (V₅) > PM-31 (V₄).