ABSTRACT
Eucalyptus globulus Labill is one of the most planted species in Chile, because of its fast growth and superior pulp qualities. Nevertheless, the incidence of drought and frost damage immediately after planting is frequent. The purpose of this work was to study the effect of drought hardening on frost resistance and on variations in morphological traits that may increase drought resistance at nursery phase in four genotypes of E. globulus Labill. Drought hardening treatments consisted in induced water stress by watering restriction, until pre-dawn stem xylem water potentials (Psi pd) reached -0.2, -1.8 and -2.6 MPa. Two water stress-rewatering cycles were applied during 54 days of hardening. Plant and root biomasses were affected by the interaction of drought hardening and genotypes. The rest of morphological and alometrical traits were affected independently by drought or genotype. Plant height, leaf area, specific leaf area (SLA), stem, and leaf biomasses decreased with drought hardening, while collar diameter was not affected. Genotypes responded differentially to drought hardening in plant height, leaf area, SLA, and stem, and leaf biomasses. Ice nucleation temperature (INT), and freezing temperatures (FRT), and 50 percent freezing damage index of leaves (LT50) were affected by the interaction between drought hardening and genotypes. EG-13, EG-23 and EG-22 genotypes became freezing tolerant with drought hardening (-2.6 MPa). Additionally, EG-14 genotype increased its freezing resistance at -1.8 MPa. Therefore, freezing resistance levels and mechanism depend on genotype and drought hardening treatment. The success in tree breeding by genetic selection should be facilitated by improved understanding of the physiology of stress resistance development and survival during water supply limitations. The knowledge of morphological and freezing resistance dependency on the interaction between genotype and drought hardening may be useful...
Subject(s)
Dehydration , Eucalyptus/analysis , Eucalyptus/antagonists & inhibitors , Plant Roots/anatomy & histology , Plant Roots/genetics , Agricultural Irrigation , Freezing , GenotypeABSTRACT
Morpho-physiological attributes exhibited in response to drought hardening at the end of the growing season of Eucalyptus globulus Labill under nursery conditions were studied to evaluate the effect of three drought hardening treatments in morpho-physiological traits used as suitable indicators of drought hardiness, such as, plant growth, root growth potential, plant water relationships and survival. Freezing resistance of drought hardened plants was also studied in order to evaluate cross hardening effects in cuttings of Eucalyptus globulus Labill. Drought hardening consisted in induced water stress by watering restriction, until plant stem xylem water potentials (psipd) reached to-0.2, -1.3 and -2.4 MPa. Two water stress-rewatering cycles were applied during 54 days of treatment. The hardening treatments caused a significant reduction in plant height, leaf area, specific leaf area, plant, leaf, stem and root biomass. However, stem diameter was not affected. Root growth potential increased with the exposure to moderate water stress (-1.3 MPa). Drought hardening treatments have not effect on water relationship parameters such as saturation osmotic potential (psipisat), volumetric module of elasticity (e), relative water content (RWCtlp) and osmotic potential (psitlp) at the turgor loss point. Only 1.7 percent and 6 percent of dehydrated dead plants were observed on treatments at -1.3 and -2.4 MPa respectively. Finally, the freezing damage index of leaves (LT50) was not significantly affected by drought hardening treatments. Furthermore, a reduction of 1.1ºC of supercooling capacity was observed at -2.4 MPa. As a conclusion, drought hardening is an important step of plants production programs during the final phase of nursery, because changes in morphological attributes caused by exposure to moderate drought, enable the plants to maintain the balance between transpiration and absorption areas and increase the capacity of plants to generate n...