Responses of two leguminous forage to drought stress and their drought resistance

The pot experiment was carried out to compare the drought resistance between Onobrychis viciaefolia and Coronilla varia by measuring their physiological characteristics of under the different drought stress. This study indicated that the increase of soil drought conditions resulted in the increase of the water saturation deficit in leaf, proline content, soluble sugar content, MDA content, superoxide anion free radical content as well as the activities of SOD, CAT and APX of O.viciaefolia and C.varia. Among each treatment, the leaf water saturation deficit and superoxide anion free radical content in C.varia were significantly higher than that in O.viciaefolia, and the proline content and CAT activity in O.viciaefolia were significantly higher than that in C.varia, but the soluble sugar content and MDA content were not significant differences between O.viciaefolia and C.varia. Obvious difference in the SOD activity between O.viciaefolia and C.varia were only found in the control treatment, meanwhile the APX activities of O.viciaefolia and C.varia were significantly different between the control treatment and the severe drought treatment. The comprehensive estimation for drought resistance showed that drought resistance of O.viciaefolia was better than that of C.varia.