Abstract
ABSTRACT Abiotic stresses are responsible for the loss of agricultural production in different regions, especially in semiarid regions, which have long periods of drought and high evapotranspiration, leading to the use of saline water as an alternative for the expansion of irrigated areas. In this context, the objective was to evaluate the physiological indices and the growth of the ‘Gigante Amarelo’ passion fruit as a function of the salinity of irrigation water and fertilization with silicon. A randomized block design was used in a 5 x 2 factorial scheme, whose treatments consisted of five electrical conductivities of irrigation water - ECw (0.3; 1.0; 1.7, 2.4 and 3.1 dS m-1) associated with two doses of silicion (150 and 300 g of silicon plant-1) with four repetitions. Salt stress causes changes in gas exchange, chlorophyll a and b synthesis and growth of ‘Gigante Amarelo’ passion fruit plants, 60 days after transplanting. Fertilization with silicon dose of 300 g plant-1 promotes increments in CO2 assimilation rate and instantaneous water use efficiency, being able to mitigate the deleterious effects of salinity. Passion fruit plants fertilized with silicon dose of 300 g plant-1 attained greater growth in stem diameter and relative growth rate in stem diameter, from 30 to 60 days after transplanting.
Highlights
Passion fruit (Passiflora edulis f. flavicarpa) is cultivated in almost all Brazilian territory, standing out as the largest producer and consumer, and its juice is the third most produced by Brazilian agroindustries
The interaction between salinity levels (SL) and silicon doses (SD) in the experimental plots did not have a significant effect on the gas exchange variables, demonstrating that these factors do not interfere jointly in passion fruit
By analyzing the silicon doses alone, it was found that the use of the highest concentration (300 g Si plant-1) led to a 22.22% reduction in stomatal conductance (Table 2), but promoted increments in CO2 assimilation rate (A) and instantaneous water use efficiency (WUEi), corresponding to 21.43 and 19.51%, Table 2
Summary
Passion fruit (Passiflora edulis f. flavicarpa) is cultivated in almost all Brazilian territory, standing out as the largest producer and consumer, and its juice is the third most produced by Brazilian agroindustries. The semiarid region of Northeastern Brazil has favorable conditions for the cultivation of passion fruit, its production depends on the use of irrigation, due to the seasonality of the rainfalls, high rate of evapotranspiration and high temperatures, favoring water scarcity for most of the year. In situations of salt stress, the osmotic and ionic effects influence the development of plants, causing changes in the metabolic activities of cells and in the process of cell elongation, compromising plant growth and possibly leading to death (Taiz et al, 2017). In order to mitigate the effects of salinity on crop development, several studies (Ashraf et al, 2010; Moussa & Galad, 2015) were conducted using silicon as a salt stress attenuator. Silicon promotes several benefits for crops, among them: increased photosynthetic rate, decreased toxic effect of some heavy metals, associated with increased antioxidant defense capacity in the face of water deficit (Hattori et al, 2005)
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