Assessment of ozone effects on five varieties of tobacco via fumigation method

ABSTRACT

To assess the susceptibility of five varieties of tobacco to ozone, nine rounds of fumigation experiments were performed. These tobacco varieties were exposed to a range of ozone concentrations in a single-pass chamber fumigation system for short periods. A dose of 7.5 pphm did not produce visible injury in any tobacco variety. Tobacco cultivars; Bel-B, Weather Fleck and ZZ100 exhibited no visible injury up to 26 pphm. However, doses in excess of 16 pphm caused visible injury in cultivars Bel-W3 and Dynes. Awareness of the susceptibility levels of these cultivars to ozone assist biological monitoring process in field experiments. Biomonitoring is considered to be a valuable method for ozone assessment for situations where air pollution monitoring by instruments in remote locations is too expensive