Dose response study of N, N’-Dimethylurea (DMU) antidote total foliar protein in Lycopersicon esculentum against the effect of O₃

To overcome the problem of agriculture loss due to air pollution, an alternative method would involve the application of protective chemical components to plants in the field to prevent injury. The studies of the potential for protection of vegetation from the oxidative gases using chemical application have been performed over the last three to four decades. This would allow the plant to grow under completely natural conditions and to be exposed to fluctuating natural concentrations of ground level ozone. Such diverse groups of chemical compounds are known as antidotes. There will always be a need to evaluate the quantitative and qualitative loss in various crops and to mitigate it by inducing scavenging potential (tolerance) in the crop plants against air pollution stress through the application of certain plant protectants. The protein level in plant is more important due to its participation in enzyme structure that plays key role in various metabolic activities of plant growth, development and yield Protein synthesis a building up process in plants is also prone to O₃ toxicity. Considerable evidence indicates that the free radicals can inactivate proteins by modifying amino acid residues. Loss in Protein content was found in Tomato crop against the gaseous concentration simultaneously significant recovery appeared against O₃ gaseous exposure. This may because the treatment adds to the internal/inherent tolerance capacity to the crop plants, which may help in the reduction of losses. The present study, decrease in protein content in 51 days Tomato plant age was recorded. The loss in Tomato plant was 16.45%. After 62 days Plant age N, N’-Dimethylurea (DMU) used during the study was found effective and could reduce the deleterious effect of ozone in Tomato crops. The recovery observed after loss in Tomato plant low dose and high dose of SE brings recovery of 49.24% and 52.84% respectively. N, N’-Dimethylurea (DMU). was found best for the amelioration of ozone toxicity.