GAS EXCHANGE AND GROWTH OF TRITICALE SEEDLINGS UNDER DIFFERENT NITROGEN SUPPLY AND WATER STRESS

Abstract

The effect of nitrogen (30 and 120 mg N per cuvette) on photosynthetic rate of four cultivars of triticale (‘Bolero’, ‘Grado’, ‘Largo’, and ‘Lasko’) grown 14 days in phytotron was strongly modified by water content (75, 45 and 35% of full water capacity). For plants grown under 35% of full water capacity, it was higher when they were grown under 30 than under 120 mg N/cuvette (9.88 and 8.76 μmol CO2 m−2 s−1, respectively) but for plants grown under 45 and 75% of full water capacity there were not significant differences. Transpiration, stomatal conductance, photosynthetic water use efficiency, and internal water use efficiency were not influenced by nitrogen doses independently of water content. Photosynthetic rate, transpiration, stomatal conductance, photosynthetic water use efficiency, and dry matter of studied cultivars of triticale grown under 45 and 35% of full water capacity and both nitrogen doses were lower than for plants grown under 75% of full water capacity. With lowering of water content stomatal conductance was decreasing similarly as photosynthetic rate e.g. for plants grown under 35% of full water capacity as compared with those grown under 75% of full water capacity average stomatal conductance decreased from 0.209 to 0.138 mol H2O m−2 s−1 and photosynthetic rate from 13.69 to 9.32 μmol CO2 m−2 s−1 and as a result there were not significant differences in internal water use efficiency for all studied combinations (67.09 μmol CO2 mol−1 H2O) which shows that stomatal factors were mainly responsible for changes of photosynthetic rate. With lowering of water content from 75 to 35% of full water capacity the decrease of photosynthetic rate and stomatal conductance was much higher than the decreases of transpiration (from 3.57 to 3.02 mmol H2O m−2 s−1) what shows not direct dependence of transpiration on stomatal conductance (water use efficiency decreased from 3.87 to 3.10 μmol CO2 mmol−1 H2O). The effect of nitrogen on dry matter production was strongly modified by water availability e.g. for plants grown under 35% of full water capacity, dry matter was similarly independent of nitrogen dose but for plants grown under 45 and 75% of full water capacity dry matter was significantly higher than when they were grown under 120 (79.05 and 86.75 mg, respectively) or with 30 mg N/cuvette (74.03 and 80.30 mg, respectively).