Abstract
Water stress in one of the most important abiotic stresses that affects the productivity of many crop species worldwide. In addition, the climate change creates new challenges for crop adaptation especially as water resources become limited and the increase in water stress becomes more pronounced even in areas where there is adequate water supply. The objective of the present study was to determine the effect of water stress on physiological characteristics of five cultivars of basil under field conditions. Water stress affected leaf temperature, dry herb yield, leaf water potential, assimilation rate and gas exchange parameters, quantum yield, instantaneous water use efficiency (WUE), and essential oil content. From the physiological characteristics water potential and assimilation rate can be used for the selection of basil cultivars tolerant to water stress. In addition, essential oil content was lower under water stress indicating that essential oil content is correlated with water availability. From the present study it is obvious that there are tolerant basil cultivars to water stress and can be found using physiological traits such as water potential and assimilation rate and can be used to save and use water more sustainable and also conserve the water resources.
Highlights
One of the major problems that climate change can cause is the water scarcity and the need to reduce the irrigated areas as agriculture consumes 75–90% of the available freshwater [1]
Chlorophyll content determined with a chlorophyll meter e.g., SPAD has been proposed as a good indicator of green color and the stay green characteristic in several plant species and for stress tolerance index [29,30]
In basil it was not affected by the irrigation but it was affected by the cultivar. These results indicate that chlorophyll content cannot be used as selection criteria for of tolerant cultivars to water stress
Summary
One of the major problems that climate change can cause is the water scarcity and the need to reduce the irrigated areas as agriculture consumes 75–90% of the available freshwater [1]. Better water management can contribute to maintaining agricultural sustainability and can happen by understanding the water needs of the different species and the water needs of the different cultivars [2,3]. Irrigation water can be managed for high yield and for better quality by using tolerant cultivars to water stress [4]. Basil is a crop species that has high water demand the water usage can be optimized to obtain high yield without consumption of great amounts of water with the proper selection of basil cultivars [5].
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