Assessment of the Drought-Tolerance Criteria for Screening Peach Cultivars

Abstract

The article presents an analysis of the artificial dehydration effect of peach leaf tissues, simulating natural drought, on various physiological, morphological, and anatomical parameters described in the literature, associated with the trait of drought resistance. An investigation aimed to identify the most informative criteria for peach drought resistance which correlate with water loss during dehydration. The results present an assessment of the amount of water loss in 60 peach cultivars selected from different geographical areas and having different genetic origins. Four contrasting genotypes were identified, based on the results of the cluster analysis performed on the cultivar’s water regime. The influence of water regime parameters (leaf water content, water saturation deficit, dynamic of water loss), the morphological and anatomical structure of the leaf, the content of photosynthetic pigments, and the activity of the photosynthetic apparatus on drought resistance were investigated for selected peach cultivars. It was revealed that the most informative criteria for assessing drought resistance were dry and fresh leaf weight, leaf blade length, leaf width, and area (among morphometric parameters); stomatal pore length, stomata density, adaxial and abaxial epidermis thickness, and adaxial cuticle thickness (among anatomical parameters); and Fv/Fm—maximum photochemical quantum yield of PSII, Y(NO)—quantum yield of unregulated non-photochemical light energy dissipation in PS II and Y(NPQ)—controlled quantum losses (among indicators of photosynthetic activity).