Abstract
In tea (Camellia sinensis) water stress generally affects the content of various plant secondary metabolites including catechins. The objective of the study was to evaluate the effects of different soil moisture content on the catechin levels of various tea clones. We found out that variation of soil water content and accumulation of catechins were strongly correlated. The experiment was conducted in an open field with the drought tolerant clones namely; SFS150, TRFK 303/577, and drought susceptible clones; TRFK 6/8, TRFK 12/9, TRFK 301/4, TRFK 31/11, S15/10, TRFK 7/9, TRFK 31/8, and BBK 35. During the cold and wet periods, the effect of plant water content on catechin level was not clearly expressed. However, significant clone × soil water content interactions (p≤ 0.05) were observed for all clones during the dry and hot periods. This observation indicated that declining plant water content (PWC) due to soil moisture stress reduced catechin levels. It was concluded that variation of catechin in various tea clones over different soil water content could be of great significance in evaluating water stress tolerance ability of tea clones. Key words: Catechins, clones, water content, dry and hot periods.
Highlights
Water stress in tea plant due drought effects results in physiological, biochemical and morphological changes such as reduction of leaf water potential, photosynthesis and stomatal conductance (Bota et al, 2004; Zobayed et al, 2007; Damayanthi et al, 2010)
The analysis placed the clones into three groups corresponding to stability of catechin content across the three seasons
Clones placed on the side with positive value indicate stable content of catechins across all the seasons
Summary
Water stress in tea plant due drought effects results in physiological, biochemical and morphological changes such as reduction of leaf water potential, photosynthesis and stomatal conductance (Bota et al, 2004; Zobayed et al, 2007; Damayanthi et al, 2010). That different forms of stress affect the content of various plant secondary metabolites including polyphenols has been reported (Borland et al, 2009; Cherotich et al, 2013) but variation in tea polyphenolics over different seasons has not been quantitatively evaluated. Langat et al 335 tolerant and susceptible clones display a distinct pattern of variation in catechin levels when subjected to different water regimes and whether the pattern agrees with the available data on the drought tolerance ability of the studied clones with a view of using the principle in selection of clones
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