Abstract
Drought is a serious abiotic stress, causes worldwide intensive reduction in crop growth and productivity. Plants in contrast to other organisms, do not enjoy the luxury of being able to change their environment or seeking shelters. In this investigation, wheat grains were pre-soaked for 12h in salicylic acid (SA) and/or thiourea (ThU) prior they were left to grow in dry land (40% field water capacity) until harvest. The bio-safety of the harvested wheat was deduced using technical physiological and spectral methods. The pretreatment using SA up to (∼1.5mmol) viewed homologous protein profile and less flag leaf proline in comparison to the non-stressed wheat. In addition, SA-pretreatment has maintained 70% of the emission intensity of yielded grain. The spectra of FTIR were more or less similar in yielded grain and flag leaf in SA-pretreatment. On the other hand, ThU pretreatment induced varied protein profile, higher proline than normal, reduced the fluorescence emission intensity by 52%, and induced varied FTIR spectra. Pretreatment of SA not only has enhanced wheat productivity but also increased yield and straw productions even above the non-treated-non-stressed wheat plant. In contrast to ThU SA was considered safe for drought-stress alleviation in crop plant agriculture.