Muhammad Zakaria¹, Sayed Hussain^2*, Essa Ali³, Jawad Munawar Shah⁴, Syed Hassan Raza⁵, Maqsood Wazir⁶, Abid Ali², Muhammad Shehzad¹

¹Department of Agronomy, Faculty of Agriculture, The University of Poonch, Rawalakot, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan

²Department of Horticulture, Abdul Wali Khan University Mardan, KPK, Pakistan

³Department of Food Science and Technology, Zhejiang University of Science and Technology, China

⁴College of Agriculture, Bahaudin Zakarya University, Pakistan

⁵Institute of Crop Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China

⁶Department of botany, Karakoram International University, GB, Pakistan

 

*Corresponding author’s email: sayedhussain@awkum.edu.pk

Received: 28 August 2025 / Revised: 05 November 2025 / Accepted: 11 November 2025 / Published Online: 09 December 2025

 

Abstract

 

Drought stress is one of the most relevant abiotic stress factors globally, greatly reducing the crop productivity of agricultural crops. Maize globally is an important economic cereal crop, and it is sensitive to water deficit, which is an important problem of the semi-arid areas of Pakistan. Since to test them under drought stress, the current research aimed to investigate different morphological, physiological, and biochemical traits linked to drought tolerance in maize genotypes and conducted in the laboratory of the Department of Agronomy, Faculty of Agriculture, The University of Poonch, Rawalakot, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan. Currently two maize varieties TP-1217 and Fakhr-NARC were exposed to different PEG (5% and 10%) to study their performance. The results show that root fresh weight was higher (1.76g) in Fakhr-NARC at PEG 5% that was followed by TP-1217 with 1.72g. The shoot fresh weight of 1.63g and 1.76g observed under PEG 5%. The photosynthesis rate of 17.66% in TP-1217 and 20.32% in Fakhr-NARC under PEG 5% was observed which was significantly reduced to 11.76% and 18.33% at PEG 10%. The chlorophyll contents of 7.15 and 13.69 were observed in PEG 5% which was further reduced to 4.79 and 9.1 at PEG 10%. The relative water contents (26.74% and 43.02%) were higher in TP-1217 at both PEG concentrations. However, the sugar (38.57), proline (52.22mgg^-1, 694.75mgg^-1), and antioxidant enzymatic activities were significantly higher in Fakhr-NARC at PEG 10%. Whereas membrane integrity (18%), H₂O₂ (18.2) and MDA (37.99) contents were higher in TP1217.

 

Keywords: Antioxidant enzymes, Chlorophyll, Drought stress, Maize, Polyethylene glycol

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