Evaluation of the tolerance of Cucurbitaceae genotypes to water deficit at the seedling stage
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.61308/VKBE6008Keywords:
cucurbits; abiotic stress; drought tolerance; chlorophyll fluorescenceAbstract
A comparative assessment of various species of the Cucurbitaceae family for water deficit was carried out at the “Maritsa” Vegetable Crops Research Institute – Plovdiv during the period 2022-2023. The aim of our study was to characterize different species of Cucurbitaceae family and evaluate them for drought tolerance at the seedling stage. In order to analyze the physiological response of cucurbit crops to drought, a vegetation experiment was carried out with the following genotypes from the Cucurbitaceae family: Lagenaria siceraria (Molina) Standl. (Long gourd): Lagenaria siceraria (Molina) Standl. (Local population) (Common gourd) Cucurbita maxima Duch. ("Plovdivska 48/4") (White pumpkin); Cucurbita moschata Duch. (Muskatna 51-17); and Luffa cylindrica Roem. (Local population). The experiment was conducted under controlled conditions in a greenhouse. Plant genotypes were grown under three contrasting levels of irrigation: optimal irrigation rate of 100% (Control); reduced irrigation rate of 50% and no irrigation for 14 days. Various screening approaches were applied, including plant growth parameters (biomass, plant height, root length, fresh weight, dry weight of plants, and leaf number; and physiological responses (chlorophyll fluorescence induction parameters and chlorophyll content index). Based on the studied biometric parameters and the analysis of chlorophyll fluorescence as well as the content of total chlorophyll in drought plants in the seedling phase, the local population of long gourd (L. siceraria) is characterized as more tolerant followed by the common gourd. Susceptibility is shown by Cucurbita moschata variety "Muskatna 51-17", followed by Cucurbita maxima "Plovdivska 48/4".
References
Akinci, S., & Losel, D. M. (2009). The soluble sugars determination in Cucurbitaceae species under water stress and recovery periods. Advances in Environmental Biology, 3(2), 175-183.
Al Hassan, M., Chaura, J., Donat-Torres, M. P., Boscaiu, M., & Vicente, O. (2017). Antioxidant responses under salinity and drought in three closely related wild monocots with different ecological optima. AoB Plants, 9(2), plx009.
Ansari, W. A., Atri, N., Singh, B., Kumar, P., & Pandey, S. (2018). Morpho-physiological and biochemical responses of muskmelon genotypes to different degree of water deficit. Photosynthetica, 56(4), 1019-1030.
Baker, N. R. (2008). Chlorophyll fluorescence: a probe of photosynthesis in vivo. Annu. Rev. Plant Biol., 59(1), 89-113.
Bolhàr-Nordenkampf, H. R., & Öquist, G. (1993). Chlorophyll fluorescence as a tool in photosynthesis research. In Photosynthesis and production in a changing environment: a field and laboratory manual (pp. 193-206). Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.
Bukhari, S. A. H., Peerzada, A. M., Javed, M. H., Dawood, M., Hussain, N., & Ahmad, S. (2019). Growth and development dynamics in agronomic crops under environmental stress. Agronomic Crops: Volume 1: Production Technologies, 83-114.
Cattivelli, L., Rizza, F., Badeck, F. W., Mazzucotelli, E., Mastrangelo, A. M., Francia, E., & Stanca, A. M. (2008). Drought tolerance improvement in crop plants: an integrated view from breeding to genomics. Field crops research, 105(1-2), 1-14.
Davoudi, M., Song, M., Zhang, M., Chen, J., and Lou, Q. (2022). Long-distance control of pumpkin rootstock over cucumber scion under drought stress as revealed by transcriptase sequencing and mobile mRNAs identifications. Horticulture Research, uhab033-uhab033.
El-Hamdi, K., Mosa, A., EL-Shazly, M., & Hashish, N. (2017). Response of cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) to various organic and bio fertilization treatments under an organic farming system. Journal of Soil Sciences and Agricultural Engineering, 8(5), 189-194.
Fan, H. F., Ding, L., Xu, Y. L., & Du, C. X. (2017). Antioxidant system and photosynthetic characteristics responses to short-term PEG-induced drought stress in cucumber seedling leaves. Russian Journal of Plant Physiology, 64, 162-173.
Golldack, D., Li, C., Mohan, H., & Probst, N. (2014). Tolerance to drought and salt stress in plants: Unraveling the signaling networks. Front. Plant Sci. 5. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2014.00151
Hatfield, J. L., & Dold, C. (2019). Water-use efficiency: advances and challenges in a changing climate. Frontiers in plant science, 10, 103.
Huang, H., Ullah, F., Zhou, D. X., Yi, M., & Zhao, Y. (2019). Mechanisms of ROS regulation of plant development and stress responses. Front. Plant Sci. 10. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2019.00800
Lai, Y. S., Shen, D., Zhang, W., Zhang, X., Qiu, Y., Wang, H., ... & Li, X. (2018). Temperature and photoperiod changes affect cucumber sex expression by different epigenetic regulations. BMC plant biology, 18(1), 268.
Li, Q. M., Liu, B. B., Wu, Y., & Zou, Z. R. (2008). Interactive effects of drought stresses and elevated CO2 concentration on photochemistry efficiency of cucumber seedlings. Journal of Integrative Plant Biology, 50(10), 1307-1317.
Liang, G., Liu, J., Zhang, J., & Guo, J. (2020). Effects of drought stress on photosynthetic and physiological parameters of tomato. Journal of the American Society for Horticultural Science, 145(1), 12-17.
Mahmood, T., Khalid, S., Abdullah, M., Ahmed, Z., Shah, M. K. N., Ghafoor, A., & Du, X. (2019). Insights into drought stress signaling in plants and the molecular genetic basis of cotton drought tolerance. Cells, 9(1), 105.. doi: 10.3390/cells9010105
Mashilo, J., Odindo, A. O., Shimelis, H. A., Musenge, P., Tesfay, S. Z., & Magwaza, L. S. (2018). Photosynthetic response of bottle gourd Lagenaria siceraria (Molina) Standl.] to drought stress: Relationship between cucurbitacins accumulation and drought tolerance. Scientia Horticulturae, 231, 133-143.
Mir, R. R., Zaman-Allah, M., Sreenivasulu, N., Trethowan, R., & Varshney, R. K. (2012). Integrated genomics, physiology and breeding approaches for improving drought tolerance in crops. Theoretical and Applied Genetics, 125, 625-645.
Mo, Y., Yang, R., Liu, L., Gu, X., Yang, X., Wang, Y., & Li, H. (2016). Growth, photosynthesis and adaptive responses of wild and domesticated watermelon genotypes to drought stress and subsequent re-watering. Plant Growth Regulation, 79, 229-241.
Mukarram, M., Choudhary, S., Kurjak, D., Petek, A., & Khan, M. M. A. (2021). Drought: Sensing, signalling, effects and tolerance in higher plants. Physiologia plantarum, 172(2), 1291-1300.
Pandey, S., Ansari, W. A., Atri, N., Singh, B., Gupta, S., & Bhat, K. V. (2018). Standardization of screening technique and evaluation of muskmelon genotypes for drought tolerance. Plant Genetic Resources, 16(1), 1-8.
Plazas, M., Nguyen, H. T., González-Orenga, S., Fita, A., Vicente, O., Prohens, J., & Boscaiu, M. (2019). Comparative analysis of the responses to water stress in eggplant (Solanum melongena) cultivars. Plant Physiology and Biochemistry, 143, 72-82.
Rouphael, Y., Cardarelli, M., Schwarz, D., Franken, P. & Colla, G., (2012). Effects of drought on nutrient uptake and assimilation in vegetable crops. Plant responses to drought stress: from morphological to molecular features, pp.171-195.
Saadaoui, W., Tarchoun, N., Msetra, I., Pavli, O., Falleh, H., Ayed, C., & Petropoulos, S. A. (2023). Effects of drought stress induced by D-Mannitol on the germination and early seedling growth traits, physiological parameters and phytochemicals content of Tunisian squash (Cucurbita maxima Duch.) landraces. Frontiers in Plant Science, 14, 1215394.
Saroj, P. L., & Choudhary, B. R. (2020). Improvement in cucurbits for drought and heat stress tolerance-a review. Current Horticulture, 8(2), 3-13.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
Categories
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Bulgarian Journal of Crop Science
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
