Foliar fertilizer management for tolerance to water drought in sugarcane

Abstract

Currently, Brazil is the world's largest sugarcane producer, with a planted area of approximately 8.59 million hectares. For being a crop of great prominence in the world economy, sugarcane has been widely researched, especially in the study of the causes that limit its productivity, with emphasis on water availability, an important factor to be considered in Brazil, because much of the cultivation takes place in drought regions, and the producing locations are limited to seasonal rainfall. However, sugarcane may present certain mechanisms for tolerance to water stress, especially with the use of foliar fertilization for that tolerance. Therefore, this study aimed to analyze the effects of foliar fertilization as a form of tolerance to water deficit in sugarcane crop. Water stress is the responsible factor for promoting physiological changes in the crop, enabling structural and functional alterations at various organizational levels of the plant. Furthermore, another approach to minimize the effects of water stress in sugarcane is to explore the plant's defense mechanisms, especially with the use of foliar fertilization as an alternative to tolerance to water deficit, considering the several benefits caused by this application method. Plant regulators are a viable option for reducing the negative physiological causes of water stress in plants, besides helping the plant to maintain physiological processes with a rapid recovery after overcoming water stress.