Phytohormones analysis
Fresh maize leaves were cut and transferred into liquid nitrogen immediately. The samples 0.4 g were completely ground and 1 mL of a mixture solution (methanol: formic acid: water=15:1:4, v/v/v) was added for extraction. Purification was done using the dual-mode solid-phase extraction method (Dobrev & KamĂ­nek, 2002). Analysis of endogenous phytohormones, abscisic acid (ABA), Auxin (IAA), and gibberellin (GA) was done according to a previously described method (Meng et al., 2016). In addition, ethylene measurement is described earlier (Murad et al., 2021; Zaidi et al., 2016).