A.A. KHALAFALLAH*, SAMIRA M. SALLAM**
*Botany Department, Women’s College for Arts, Science and Education, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt
**Physics Department, Faculty of Science, Benha University, Kaliobia, Egypt
Abstract. The objective of the present study was to investigate the changes of germination, growth rate and absorbance efficiency of photosynthetic pigments of maize grains after exposed to microwaves (MW). Experiment was carried out by exposing maize plants to continuous microwaves energy at (935.2–960.2 MHz with intensities 0.07–0.15 mW/cm2). The test plants and the control plants were subjected to the same environment during four weeks. The hypothesis was that plants exposed to MW would be different from those plants not exposed. The present experiment showed that germinating grains, growth rate (g dry wt./week and cm2/week) of exposed maize seedling and absorbance efficiency (η) significantly increased compared to the control. Also, photosynthetic pigments, total soluble sugar and total carbohydrates were positively affected by MW exposure. Microwaves altered the anatomical features of maize leaves by increasing midrib vascular bundle length, wing and assimilating layer thickness. In all measured variables differences between the control and the microwave treatment plants occured.
Key words: microwave (MW), Zea mays, germination, growth, metabolic biosynthesis, absorbance efficiency, anatomy.