Journal of Stress Physiology & Biochemistry, Vol. 21 No. 2 2025, pp. 143-155 ISSN 1997-0838
Original Text Copyright (cc) 2024 by Ralh and Singh



ORIGINAL ARTICLE
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Comparative Analysis of Neem Extract and Chemical Pesticides on Physiological and Biochemical Responses in Maize Seedlings

Pallvi Ralh and Gurpreet Singh*

1 Post-Graduate Department of Biotechnology, Lyallpur Khalsa College, Jalandhar, 144001, Punjab, India

*E-Mail: singh.gpbio@gmail.com

Received October 28, 2024

Chemical pesticides are an essential component of modern agriculture practice but they mitigate with various metabolic pathways of crops. Biopesticides including botanical extracts are plant-based flavonoids and polyphenolic compounds which has the potential of both the pesticides as well as phyto-protection. The present study compares the effect of chemical pesticide viz-a-viz neem based biopesticides on various physiological, biochemical and antioxidative properties in the developing maize seedlings. We observed that different conc. of profenofos and malathion resulted in decreased shoot and root length, interfered with photosynthetic components such as Chl a, chl b , chl a+b, carotenoid content and also resulted in decreased activity of  total phenol, starch and MDA content. The MDA content,  FRAP assay and various antioxidant enzyme assays show differential behaviour. The total antioxidative activity (FRAP assay) and antioxidant enzyme activities of APX, CAT, SOD showed enhanced activities vis-а-vis differential expression under chemical pesticide stress conditions, thus suggests that the pesticide produces the oxidative stress in plant and triggers the antioxidant defence system to counter the stress. Different conc. of Neem based biopesticide, exhibited an increase in shoot and root length, chlorophyll and carotenoid pigments, phenol, sugar content. This study thus suggests the biopesticide alleviates the physiological and biochemical activities thereby increasing the productivity compared to chemical pesticides and thus further supports that organic pesticides can be used as alternative pesticide.

Key words:   Neem extract, Profenofos, malathion, antioxidative enzymes, maize seedling, lipid peroxidation

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