Abstract
In subtropical regions, chilling stress is one of the major constraints for sugarcane cultivation, which hampers yield and sugar production. Two recently released sugarcane cultivars, moderately chilling tolerant Guitang 49 and chilling tolerant Guitang 28, were selected. The experiments were conducted in the controlled environment, and seedlings were exposed to optimum (25°C/15°C), chilling (10°C/5°C), and recovery (25°C/15°C) temperature conditions. PSII heterogeneity was studied in terms of reducing side and antenna size heterogeneity. Under chilling, reducing side heterogeneity resulted in increased number of QB non-reducing centers, whereas antenna side heterogeneity resulted in enhanced number of inactive β centers in both cultivars, but the magnitude of change was higher in Guitang 49 than Guitang 28. Furthermore, in both cultivars, quantum efficiency of PSII, status of water splitting complex, and performance index were adversely affected by chilling, along with reduction in net photosynthesis rate and nighttime respiration and alterations in leaf optical properties. The extents of negative effect on these parameters were larger in Guitang 49 than in Guitang 28. These results reveal a clear differentiation in PSII heterogeneity between differentially chilling tolerant cultivars. Based on our studies, it is concluded that PSII heterogeneity can be used as an additional non-invasive and novel technique for evaluating any type of environmental stress in plants.
Highlights
Sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum L.), a major C4 crop, is mainly cultivated in tropical and subtropical regions
Significant difference was observed in both cultivars for all the studied parameters such as PSII heterogeneity, Chl a fluorescence transient parameters, and gas exchange traits for optimum temperature, chilling stress and for recovery as well
The present study revealed that chilling stress adversely affected PSII heterogeneity along with Chl a fluorescence transients, gas exchange, leaf optical properties, and Chl index
Summary
Sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum L.), a major C4 crop, is mainly cultivated in tropical and subtropical regions. It is an economically important crop having versatile uses, such as fodder, production of sugar, biofuel, paper, alcohol, etc. Countries located in marginal tropical and subtropical regions face severe damage to sugarcane cultivation due to seasonal chilling temperature incidences (Selvarajan et al, 2018). China encountered a chilling temperature incident during the year 2008, which caused 68% crop (sugarcane) loss in Guangxi province alone (Li and Yang, 2015; Li et al, 2015). Occurrences of such deleterious chilling temperature incidents are predicted to be more frequent in the near future, due to climate change (IPCC, 2013)
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