Effects of water supply on gas exchange, carbon isotopic composition, and relative growth rate were compared among seedlings from three populations of ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa Dougl. ex Laws.) grown in a controlled environment chamber. The three populations were chosen to represent high, moderate and low drought tolerance. There was no indication that drought tolerance was related to hig...

Water deficit and phosphate (Pi) deficiency adversely affect growth and biological nitrogen fixation (BNF) of legume crops. In this study, we examined the impact of interaction between soil water conditions and available soil-Pi levels on growth, nodule development and BNF potential of nine cowpea varieties grown on dry savanna soils. In our experimental design, soils with different available s...

A randomized complete block design 2 × 4 experiment was designed and conducted for 15 weeks to characterize the relationships between production of total phenolics, flavonoid, anthocyanin, leaf gas exchange, total chlorophyll, phenylalanine ammonia-lyase (PAL) and malondialdehyde (MDA) activity in two varieties of Labisia pumila Benth, namely the var. alata and pumila, under four levels of evap...

Container-grown quiescent Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii var. glauca (Beissn.) Franco) seedlings were air dried to plant water potentials of -0.2, -2.2 or -3.8 MPa (unstressed, moderate, and severe stress treatments, respectively). Trees from each treatment were either placed in root mist chambers held at 10, 20, or 28 degrees C for 28 days and root growth potential (RGP) and plant water po...

Despite the importance of Artemisia annua L. as the only source of the anti-parasitic drug artemisinin, little is known on the effects of biotic and abiotic stress on artemisinin accumulation. Water deficit is the most limiting factor on plant growth, however it can trigger secondary metabolite accumulation, depending on the plant growth stage and intensity. A. annua cultivated in growth chambe...

Increasing water scarcity challenges crop sustainability in many regions. As a consequence, the enhancement of transpiration efficiency (TE)-that is, the biomass produced per unit of water transpired-has become crucial in breeding programs. This could be achieved by reducing plant transpiration through a better closure of the stomatal pores at the leaf surface. However, this strategy generally ...

To mitigate the effects of heat and drought stress, a better understanding of the genetic control of physiological responses to these environmental conditions is needed. To this end, we evaluated an upland cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) mapping population under water-limited and well-watered conditions in a hot, arid environment. The elemental concentrations (ionome) of seed samples from the po...

Maize ARGOS8 is a negative regulator of ethylene responses. A previous study has shown that transgenic plants constitutively overexpressing ARGOS8 have reduced ethylene sensitivity and improved grain yield under drought stress conditions. To explore the targeted use of ARGOS8 native expression variation in drought-tolerant breeding, a diverse set of over 400 maize inbreds was examined for ARGOS...

Plants adopt a series of strategies to tolerate solar UV-B radiation (with the side effects growth reduction), but positive have not been yet clarified. In this study, two cultivars with different leaf thickness for Chestnut rose (Rosa roxburghii Tratt), pioneering species ecological restoration in Karst region Southwest China, were employed investigate its responses ultraviolet-B (UV-B) exclus...