Year: 2015
Type: article
Abstract: Water shortage is a critical problem touching plant growth and yield in semi-arid areas, for instance the Mediterranean region.For this reason was studied the physiological basis of drought tolerance of a new, drought tolerant crop quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.)tested in Morocco in two successive seasons, subject to four irrigation treatments (100, 50, and 33%ETc, and rainfed).The chlorophyll a fluorescence transients were analyzed by the JIP-test to translate stressinduced damage in these transients to changes in biophysical parameter's allowing quantification of the energy flow through the photosynthetic apparatus.Drought stress induced a significant decrease in the maximum quantum yield of primary photochemistry (φP0 = Fv/Fm), and the quantum yield of electron transport (φE0).The amount of active Photosystem II (PSII) reaction centers (RC) per excited cross section (RC/CS) also decreased when exposed to the highest drought stress.The effective antenna size of active RCs (ABS/RC) increased and the effective dissipation per active reaction centers (DIo/RC) increased by increasing drought stress during the growth season in comparison to the control.However the performance index (PI), was a very sensitive indicator of the physiological status of plants.Leaf area index, leaf water potential and stomatal conductance decreased as the drought increased.These results indicate that, in quinoa leaf, JIP-test can be used as a sensitive method for measuring drought stress effects.
Language: English
Subfield: Plant Science
Domain: Life Sciences
SDG: Zero hunger
Open Access status: diamond
Award: G5750828872
OpenAlex ID: W1802190677