Abstract

In view of increasing water demand by other sectors, and expected reduction ofwater availability in the future, it is necessary to adopt water management strategieswhich aim at water saving while maintaining satisfactory levels of production. One ofthese strategies is to improve water use efficiency through the application of deficitirrigation (DI) which deliberately sustains some degree of water deficit and yieldreduction. The expectation of these strategies is that any yield reduction will be notsignificant as compared with the benefits gained from water saving.Partial root-zone deficit irrigation (PRD) is a DI technique to save irrigation waterwithout much yield reduction. In fact, several authors report that when only part ofthe root system undergoes water-stress, abscissic acid (ABA) may be produced.This is transported through the xylem towards the leaves and reduces stomatalopening. On the contrary, poor root function reduces the production of cytokininswhich are responsible for stomatal opening. These two aspects may combine toreduce stomatal opening and, consequently, gaseous exchange between the leavesand the surrounding environment.This study focused on the effect of DI via PRD on gas exchange, assimilateddistribution, yield, and water use efficiency (WUE), to acquire useful information forthe possible application of this technique on eggplant crop.Research has been carried out in southern Italy to study the split-root water stresseffect on some physiological and morphological parameters of eggplant (Solanummelongena L. cv Tania). Plants were grown in pots and the root system was dividedinto two equal halves by a plastic wall. The pots were put in open air and the soilsurface was covered by a waterproof film to protect the soil from rain water. Thefollowing treatments were compared: 1) the entire rhizosphere (both halves) wellwatered during the whole vegetative cycle (WW); 2) half a rhizosphere well wateredand the other half water stressed after the beginning of blooming until the end ofthe vegetative cycle (WS1); 3) half a rhizosphere well watered and the other halfwater stressed, 30 days later in respect to treatment WS1, and until the end of thevegetative cycle (WS2). It was adopted a randomized blocks layout with 5 replicates.The results showed that stomatal conductance (gs), transpiration and assimilationrate (A) decreased at beginning of partial root water shortage cycle, but after thefirst days of plant adaptation to the new situation, was observed a recovery in this parameters, mainly in A. The reduction of gs is likely to depend not only by the low water potential in the xylem but also by ABA and cytokinins produced by the stressed root system. The shoot/root ratio decreased in PRD plants, mainly in WS1. In PRD plants was observed a reduction in yield, by around 13 (WS1) and 9% (WS2) but, because of lower evapotranspiration experienced by these plants, the WUE increa

Autore Pugliese

• Boari Francesca , Montesano Francesco Fabiano , Cantore Vito

Tutti gli autori

• F. Boari; M.I. Schiattone; V. Cantore; F.F. Montesano

Titolo volume/Rivista

Non Disponibile

Anno di pubblicazione

2015

ISSN

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ISBN

2-85352-549-X

Numero di citazioni Wos

Nessuna citazione

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Numero di citazioni Scopus

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Settori ERC

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Codici ASJC

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