| Two cultivars with contrasting drought resistance, Yunrui47 (drought resistant) and Yunrui88(drought sensitive) were grown in pots experiment with four treatments, including mild drought (LS), moderate drought (MS), severe drought (SS) and normal treatment (CK). The study aims to investigate the effect of drought stress on plant height, leaf area, total biomass, ratio of root to shoot and antioxidant enzyme activities during seedling stage. The results showed that drought stress inhibited growth of the two maize cultivars, resulting in the significant decline in plant height, leaf area and biomass, while the ratio of root to shoot were increased. The drought sensitivity of Yunrui88 was greater than that of Yunrui47. Compared to CK, the activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD), peroxidase ( POD), catalase (CAT) increased firstly then decreased rapidly, being the highest in MS treatment. SOD, POD and CAT contents of Yunrui47 increased by 27.04%, 16.95% and 19.13%, and the SOD, POD and CAT contents of Yunrui88 increased by 22.55%, 11.20% and 12.64%, respectively. Compared to CK, MDA in leaf of the two cultivars was increased under drought stress. With the increasing of drought stress, Yunrui88 showed larger increase in MDA than Yunrui47 did. In particular for SS treatment, the MDA of Yunrui 88 was 1.31 times than that of Yunrui47, suggesting the higher antioxidant enzymes and lower MDA contents in Yunrui47 were responsible for its strong resistance to drought stress. |