Physiological and productivity responses of fenugreek to foliar spraying with molybdenum and cysteine

Abstract Background Fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum L.) is one of the oldest cultivated medicinal plants, as well as it is rich with medicinal antioxidant components. The effect of foliar spraying with molybdenum, cysteine on growth, quality and productivity of fenugreek was evaluated in a conducted greenhouse experiment during 2019/2020 and 2020/2021 growing seasons. Results Results showed that there were different effects of molybdenum, cysteine and their interaction on morphological characters, photosynthetic pigments, seed yield and yield components and some chemical components of fenugreek plants. However, there was a variety of polypeptide bands with different molecular weights ranging from 18.94 to 250 kDa and was detected with polymorphic ratio 61.91%. Moreover, multiple bands varied in their molecular weight were detected in all tested plants using ISSR primers. The polymorphic percentage reached 70.00, 73.33, 76.19, 72.22, 77.77 and 70.59% in all tested plants with primer IS-01, Is-02, IS-03, IS-04, Is-05 and IS-06, respectively. Conclusions It was cleared that foliar spraying with molybdenum, cysteine and their interaction enhanced and improved growth, quality and productive characters of fenugreek. Moreover, there were molecular changes in fenugreek under study and generated bands using the six ISSR primers.