Study on the Relationship Between Drought Resistance and Physiological Indexes of Maize

After selecting five physiological and biochemical indexes relevant to drought resistance,the ratios(relative values) of the indexes under drought stress to those under normal water conditions were montiored to assess maize drought tolerance.Based on these physiological and biochemical indexes,15 maize varieties were divided into four categories according to cluster analysis,namely,strong drought-resistance,higher drought resistance,moderately drought resistance,drought-sensitive.Multivariate analysis of variance shows that there are significant differences between the groups(P 0.001)and the drought resistance among the maize varieties are mainly determined by the RWC,MDA content,and chlorophyll content.Soluble sugar content and POD don′t change significantly,their effect on drought resistance of maize is limited.This study results show that in the evaluation of drought resistance of maize,the relative water content,MDA content,chlorophyll content are the physiological and biochemical indexes that should be first considered.