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Physiological and morphological response to drought stress in seedlings of ten citrus

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Abstract

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Under drought stress, growth seedlings decreased, but proline and soluble sugar increased in shoots and roots of tolerance citrus. There are correlations between these parameters under water stress.

Abstract

Citrus fruit production is confronted worldwide with increasing biotic and abiotic constraints. In this study, ten citrus fruits (Bael, Sour orange, Sweet orange, Lemon, Rough lemon, Shell Mahalleh, Alemow, Trivestrange, Red blush and Pineapple) were compared for drought stress tolerance. Drought stress was induced by polyethylene glycol 6000 to produce water potentials of 0, −0.25, −0.5, −0.75, −1 and −1.5 MPa. Under stress conditions, shoot and root length, shoot and root dry weight, shoot and root fresh weight, tissue water content and germination percentage decreased markedly. There were variations in degree among the cultivars. Plants exposed to drought stress had a higher amount of soluble sugar in shoots and roots of tolerant cultivars (Bael, Rough lemon, Sour orange and Alemow) and a lower amount of starch in their tissues. Also, the levels of proline increased in parallel with the severity of drought stress in both shoots and roots in tolerant cultivars. The accumulation of soluble sugar and proline indicates a possible role of these osmolytes in drought tolerance. We assume that there would be correlations between these parameters under different levels of water stress. It is possible to use proline and soluble sugar as an index of drought stress in citrus trees. Cluster analysis produced a dendrogram with three groups differing in their tolerance to osmotic stress.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the University of Jiroft for financial supports and Shahid Dehghanpour Education Center of Jiroft for providing the required plant materials.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Soil Science, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Jiroft, Jiroft, Iran

    Tahereh Zaher-Ara & Naser Boroomand

  2. Department of Horticulture, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Jiroft, Jiroft, Iran

    Mohammad Sadat-Hosseini

  3. Department of Horticultural Crops, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Jiroft, Jiroft, Iran

    Mohammad Sadat-Hosseini

Authors
  1. Tahereh Zaher-Ara
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  2. Naser Boroomand
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  3. Mohammad Sadat-Hosseini
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Correspondence to Naser Boroomand.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Communicated by J. Lin.

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Zaher-Ara, T., Boroomand, N. & Sadat-Hosseini, M. Physiological and morphological response to drought stress in seedlings of ten citrus. Trees 30, 985–993 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00468-016-1372-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00468-016-1372-y

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