Abstract: ATailing is a novel plant immune protein preparation invented by China and can trigger broad-spectrum resistance, plant growth enhancement and yield improvement in a variety of crops. However, it remains to be clarified in wheat. Here, we performed field trials on wheat resistance and growth enhancement in Shandong and Henan province in 2016 and preliminarily investigated the mechanisms of wheat disease resistance induced by ATailing. Wheat seeds were coated with 400 dilution of ATailing and whole plants were sprayed with 1000 dilution of ATailing at returning green stage, elongating stage and beginning of flowering stage, respectively. The results demonstrated that content of total chlorophyll, number of fibrous roots and root activity were significantly increased and the disease resistance against wheat sheath blight, powdery mildew and leaf rust increased 29.3%~64.9% post ATailing treatment. Meanwhile, the ear length, grain number and thousand grain weight were also remarkably increased, leading to more than 15% yield improvement compared to untreated wheat plants. Furthermore, defense enzyme activity of POD, SOD and CAT increased by 45%, and defense-related genes of PR-1, PR-2 and PR-5 were also up-regulated by 10 times after spraying ATailing. Taken together, the results suggested that ATailing could promote wheat growth and improve disease resistance effectively. Increased defense enzyme activity and up-regulated defense-related genes are important mechanism of wheat disease resistance induced by ATailing.

Key words: immune protein preparation ATailing, induced disease resistance, defense-related enzymes, defense-related genes