Water Deficiency Detection of Hevea brasiliensis Clones by Laser Induced Fluorescence

Abstract

Water is the key nutritional element for the optimal development of plants. A water deficiency leads to lower crop productivity. As the health status of a plant influences the photosynthesis process, a photosynthetic diagnosis of a plant can be carried by laser induced chlorophyll fluorescence, a reliable and fast method that is non-destructive to the sample. In this study, we show that it is possible to detect the water deficiency of rubber tree hevea brasiliensis from the chlorophyll fluorescence ratio. The fluorescence ratio used in this study is called the effective ratio and it corresponds to the both fluorescence peaks ratio. We noticed that the water deficient plants fluorescence ratios were higher than those of normally watered plants. Moreover, the stressed plants' ratios are greater than a threshold value which depends on the duration of water deprivation application.