Abstract
BackgroundDue to its biennual life cycle Brassica oleracea is especially exposed to seasonal changes in temperature that could limit its growth and fitness. Thermal stress could limit plant growth, leaf development and photosynthesis. We evaluated the performance of two local populations of B. oleracea: one population of cabbage (B. oleracea capitata group) and one population of kale (B. oleracea acephala group) under limiting low and high temperatures.ResultsThere were differences between crops and how they responded to high and low temperature stress. Low temperatures especially affect photosynthesis and fresh weight. Stomatal conductance and the leaf water content were dramatically reduced and plants produce smaller and thicker leaves. Under high temperatures there was a reduction of the weight that could be associated to a general impairment of the photosynthetic activity.ConclusionsAlthough high temperatures significantly reduced the dry weight of seedlings, in general terms, low temperature had a higher impact in B. oleracea physiology than high temperature. Interestingly, our results suggest that the capitata population is less sensitive to changes in air temperature than the acephala population.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12870-015-0535-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
Due to its biennual life cycle Brassica oleracea is especially exposed to seasonal changes in temperature that could limit its growth and fitness
Thermal stress produces a significant reduction of the fresh weight of the aerial part of both varieties (Fig. 1a)
This reduction was especially marked when plants were grown under chilling conditions, since under such conditions fresh weight was reduced by 50 % compared to values observed under control temperature (20 °C) (Fig. 1a)
Summary
Due to its biennual life cycle Brassica oleracea is especially exposed to seasonal changes in temperature that could limit its growth and fitness. We evaluated the performance of two local populations of B. oleracea: one population of cabbage (B. oleracea capitata group) and one population of kale (B. oleracea acephala group) under limiting low and high temperatures. Due to their sessile lifestyle plants are especially exposed to environmental changes that modulate their growth and development. Optimal plant growth takes place within more or less strict environmental conditions. Outside this optimal range, plants suffer stresses which limit their growth and productivity.
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