Abstract
Aim of study: The eucalyptus grows rapidly and is well suitable to edaphic and bioclimatic conditions in several regions of of the world. The aim of this study was to assess the performance of Eucalyptus urograndis hybrids grown under different water availability conditions.Area of study: The study was performed in south-eastern of BrazilMaterial and Methods: We evaluated five commercial hybrids cultivated in pots with the substrate maintained at 65, 50, 35 and 20% maximum water retention capacity. The evaluation was based on the following characteristics: total height (cm), diameter (mm), number of leaves, leaf area (dm2), and dry weight (g plant-1) of leaf, stem + branches, root, shoot and total and root/shoot ratio.Main results: All the characteristics evaluated were adversely affected by reduced availability of water in the substrate. The hybrids assessed performed differently in terms of biometric characteristics, irrespective of water availability. Water deficit resulted in a greater reduction in the dry weight production compared to number of leaves, diameter and height. Hybrids H2 and H5 have favorable traits for tolerating drought. The hybrid H2 shows a stronger slowdown in growth as soil moisture levels drop, although its growth rate is low, and H5 increases the root/shoot ratio but maintains growth in terms of height, even under drought conditions.Research highlights: The results obtained in our experiment show that productive hybrids sensitive to drought could also perform better under water deficit conditions, maintaining satisfactory growth despite significant drops in these characteristics.Keywords: Eucalyptus urograndis; water deficit; drought tolerance.
Highlights
In several countries, in Brazil, the used area with forest species for commercial purposes is gradually increasing
The effects of the water regimes on each hybrid were compared to the treatment at 65% soil moisture levels (SML) in terms of alteration in growth (%), and to eliminate the effects of differences in the development of the cuttings on setting up the experiment, the data were analyzed in terms of relative increment (RI) using the following formula: RI = [(Ae – Ab)/ Ab] * 100, where Ae is the value of characteristic A at the end of the experiment and Ab is the value of characteristic A at the beginning of the experiment
Leaf dry weight (LDW) under water deficit dropped 84.2% for hybrid H5, whereas number of leaves (NL) dropped by only 77.1% for H2 (Table 1)
Summary
In Brazil, the used area with forest species for commercial purposes is gradually increasing. These forests have been established mainly with Eucalyptus species, which have high productivity and good adaptation to different environmental conditions. Much of this expansion has been provided in areas with major limitation to the plant growth, such as low water availability and/or high local temperatures. It is important to bring together different research fields in order to identify and overcome the genetic and agronomic limitations of crops in terms of growth and productivity in unfavorable environments, those subject to drought (Chaves and Davies, 2010). The initial and most sensitive response to drought is a reduction in cell turgidity and consequent slowdown in plant growth (Larcher, 2000; Anjum et al, 2011)
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