Abstract
BackgroundWater stress is one of the serious abiotic stresses that negatively influences the growth, development and production of sugarcane in arid and semi-arid regions. However, silicon (Si) has been applied as an alleviation strategy subjected to environmental stresses.MethodsIn this experiment, Si was applied as soil irrigation in sugarcane plants to understand the mitigation effect of Si against harmful impact of water stress on photosynthetic leaf gas exchange.ResultsIn the present study we primarily revealed the consequences of low soil moisture content, which affect overall plant performance of sugarcane significantly. Silicon application reduced the adverse effects of water stress by improving the net photosynthetic assimilation rate (Anet) 1.35–18.75%, stomatal conductance to water vapour (gs) 3.26–21.57% and rate of transpiration (E) 1.16–17.83%. The mathematical models developed from the proposed hypothesis explained the functional relationships between photosynthetic responses of Si application and water stress mitigation.ConclusionsSilicon application showed high ameliorative effects on photosynthetic responses of sugarcane to water stress and could be used for mitigating environmental stresses in other crops, too, in future.
Highlights
Water stress is one of the serious abiotic stresses that negatively influences the growth, development and production of sugarcane in arid and semi-arid regions
We aimed to identify the appropriate concentration of Si that can improve and/ or maintain the photosynthetic capacity of sugarcane during water stress
Randomly uniform plants were selected for water stress and silicon application (0, 100, 200 and 500 mg L−1), applied as soil irrigation
Summary
Water stress is one of the serious abiotic stresses that negatively influences the growth, development and production of sugarcane in arid and semi-arid regions. Hybrid) is a major C4 cash crop predominantly grown in arid and semi-arid areas and is an important agro-industrial crop used for various purposes, i.e. sugar and ethanol production. Water deficit causes severe loss to sugarcane production to various countries located in arid and semi-arid zones [1, 2]. China is the third largest sugar producer after Brazil and India among the first 10. Brazil is the largest sugarcane producer globally, and its production is mainly for ethanol and sugar productivity [6, 7]. The use of ethanol from renewable sources is mainly useful to minimize greenhouse gas emissions and dependence on fossil fuels [8]
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