Abstract
Water availability is one of the most important limiting factors in agriculture worldwide, particularly in arid and semiarid regions. Six spring wheat genotypes, i.e. three UK cultivars Cadenza, Paragon, and Xi-19 and three synthetic-derived lines L-22, L-24, and L-38, were grown in a phytotron under well-watered (until 40 days after sowing) and drought conditions. The aim of the study was to evaluate the traits related to photosynthetic capacity (net photosynthesis rate, stomatal conductance, internal CO2 concentration, transpiration rate, carboxylation capacity, instantaneous and intrinsic water-use efficiency) and plant biomass production in the cultivars and synthetic derivatives of wheat genotypes under well-watered and water-limited conditions. Genotypic variations in gas-exchange traits including net photosynthetic rate, carboxylation capacity, instantaneous water-use efficiency, and biomass yield were found amongst genotypes. Drought significantly reduced the total dry matter per plant. The synthetic derivatives L-22 and L-24 showed higher performance of stomata for most of the stomatal aperture characteristics. Total dry matter was positively related to net photosynthetic rate and to instantaneous and intrinsic water-use efficiencies. Finally, net photosynthetic rate was also positively related to stomatal conductance and transpiration rate under both the well-watered and water-limited drought conditions.
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Abbreviations
- C i :
-
intercellular CO2 concentration
- DAS:
-
days after sowing
- E :
-
transpiration rate
- g s :
-
stomatal conductance
- P N :
-
net photosynthetic rate
- P N/C i :
-
carboxylation capacity
- TDM:
-
total dry matter
- WL:
-
water-limited
- WW:
-
well-watered
- WUE:
-
instantaneous water-use efficiency (= P N/E)
- WUEi :
-
intrinsic water-use efficiency (= P N/g s)
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Acknowledgements: The authors are grateful to the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission for awarding first author Commonwealth Academic Fellowship to undertake this research at School of Biosciences, University of Nottingham, UK. They thank the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, UK for funding BBSRC Lola Project ‘Enhancing diversity in UK wheat through a public sector prebreeding programme’.
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Sikder, S., Foulkes, J., West, H. et al. Evaluation of photosynthetic potential of wheat genotypes under drought condition. Photosynthetica 53, 47–54 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11099-015-0082-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11099-015-0082-9