Abstract
Tea (Camellia sinensis) is one of the most important economic crops. Being perennial in nature, tea plant often experiences natural drought, which affects its growth and productivity. The present investigation was undertaken to understand the mechanism of post-drought stress recovery on rehydration and the effect of nutrients in the recovery process of the selected clones of Camellia sinensis L. (TV-1, TV-20, TV-29 & TV-30). The results demonstrated that decrease in relative water content (RWC), dry mass of leaf and antioxidants like-ascorbate and glutathione in all the tested clones, as a result of imposed water stress, which caused damage was not permanent. Increase in phenolic content with decrease in O2-, H2O2 and lipid peroxidation was indication of the recovery of stress induced oxidative damage following the post stress rehydration. Further, the post drought recovery was enhanced by foliar spray of K, Ca, Mn & B. Differential activities of enzymes like SOD, CAT, POX, GR and PPO in response to foliar spray of nutrients in rehydrated plant improved the recovery process. The present study reveals that the tested nutrients (K, Ca, Mn & B) showed some positive response in influencing growth and antioxidative responses during post drought recovery process, where K and Ca showed comparatively better effect in improving post drought recovery potential in tea plant.
Highlights
Tea is the second most commonly drank liquid on earth after water
The present study reveals that the tested nutrients (K, Ca, Mn & B) showed some positive response in influencing growth and antioxidative responses during post drought recovery process, where K and
On rehydration and micronutrient treatments an increase in dry mass of leaves in recovery phase was observed in all the tested clones after 10 d (PDR I), 20 d (PDR II) and 30 d (PDR III) of treatment (Table 1). This shows that dry mass of tea leaves increases as a result of micronutrient spray during the recovery process, with increasing days of treatment being highest after 30 days (PDRIII) of treatment
Summary
Tea plant being perennial crop, is subjected to different environmental stress, drought being one of the important among them. Drought stress is an important abiotic stress, which induces oxidative damage in tea plant and affects the antioxidant systems, altering different physiological and biochemical processes [1] leading to significant crop losses. Drought induces an increase in ROS production resulting in various degree of oxidative damage in different clonal varieties of tea. Recovery of stress induced damages after post-stress rehydration in terms of regaining antioxidative properties and photosynthetic functions has been reported earlier [1]. Role of nutrients (micro & macro) in post-drought recovering plant is one of the important areas to be explored.
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