Abstract:
Environmental stresses give huge impact on crops growth and productivity. Among
the environmental stresses, drought stress cause greater impacts on the yields
production of crops. Thus, this study was conducted to determine the effects of
drought stress on fatty acids of pineapple (Ananas comosus). Pineapple plantlets were
treated in different concentrations of PEG 4000 (0%, 2%, 4% and 6%) in MS media
for four weeks. The biomass of the plantlets after treatments and dried were recorded.
The total lipids were obtained by extraction process. The fatty acid content was
determined using Gas chromatography. Palmitic and stearic acids were recorded at
four weeks of treatment. The fatty acids contents were decreased as the PEG
concentrations increased. The highest reduction was recorded in 6% of PEG 4000
treatments, 19.55%, lower than the control. The fatty acids contents of pineapple were
significantly affected by the drought stress. Through this finding, further development
for future food security can be achieved by extracting a new gene that can resist
towards drought stress.
