Abstract
The discontinuous seed hydration enables the acquisition of tolerance to environmental stresses, causing a stress imprint. It may modify metabolic patterns and lead to improved stress responses. This study aims to evaluate the effects of discontinuous hydration on germination and on seedling growth of Triplaris gardneriana Wedd. under intermittent drought. The seeds have gone through cycles (0, 1, 2 and 3) of hydration and dehydration (HD). The seedlings produced were subjected to water deficit (daily watering and intervals of seven and fourteen days between watering). Seed germinability parameters and, relative growth rate (RGR) of seedling, leaf area, dry matter yield and leaf relative water content (RWC) were evaluated. The HD cycles did not benefit germination, but two HD cycles induced a better biomass accumulation and increased leaf area in seedlings under moderate water deficit, while three HD cycles promoted an increase in RGR and influenced the RWC values. Severe stress affects seedling growth, but subjection to HD cycles minimizes the deleterious effects of drought, suggesting discontinuous hydration acts leading stress imprint in plants.
Highlights
Plant organisms do not always find favorable conditions for growth and development during their life cycle
According to the germination aspects analyzed for Triplaris gardneriana, the discontinuous seed hydration does not influence the parameters evaluated when seeds are under ideal germination conditions
Given the differences caused by hydration and dehydration (HD) cycles and water treatments on relative growth rate (RGR), leaf area (LA) and leaf area ratio (LAR) of T. gardneriana seedlings (Table 2, Figure 1), we proposed to investigate whether these changes express themselves at different levels of leaf water content
Summary
Plant organisms do not always find favorable conditions for growth and development during their life cycle. Plants respond to the scarcity of these resources in complex ways, involving adaptive changes or deleterious responses. In field conditions, these responses may be synergistically or antagonistically modified due to multiple pressures, such as the environmental stresses (Chaves et al, 2002). These responses may be synergistically or antagonistically modified due to multiple pressures, such as the environmental stresses (Chaves et al, 2002) These pressures may cause disturbances in the appropriate levels of these resources and may promote negative effects on plant growth and establishment (Zlatev & Lidon 2012; Brunner, Herzog, Dawes, Arend, & Sperisen, 2015; Zandalinas et al, 2017). The use of priming stimuli in seeds has been discussed as a strategy of induced tolerance in plants (Hossain, Liu, Burritt, Fujita, & Huang, 2020) and it is generally considered a primary germinative metabolism that allows the activation of repair mechanisms in the seeds, enabling germination and seedling development (Thomas, Dinakar, & Puthur, 2020)
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