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Drought priming at vegetative stage improves the antioxidant capacity and photosynthesis performance of wheat exposed to a short-term low temperature stress at jointing stage

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Abstract

Aim

To study the effects of multi-occurring stresses and the underlying mechanisms of cross-stress tolerance.

Methods

Wheat plants were exposed to moderate drought priming (the leaf water potential reached ca. -0.8 MPa) at the 5-6th leaf stage for 2 weeks, and the physiological and yield responses of the drought-primed and non-primed plants to low temperature stress (4/ 2 °C in the day/ night for 2 days) at jointing stage were investigated.

Results

Under low temperature stress, the primed plants possessed higher leaf relative water content and much activated antioxidant system and hence reduced the oxidative injury to the photosynthetic apparatus, resulting in greater photosynthetic rate and higher grain yield as compared with the non-primed plants. In addition, increase of the ABA concentrations in leaf was found closely associated with the enhanced anti-oxidant enzymes activity in the primed plants.

Conclusions

Drought priming at vegetative stage improves cold tolerance of wheat at jointing stage via sustaining ROS homeostasis, during which ABA plays a key role in alleviating the effects of low temperature stress in the drought-primed plants.

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Abbreviations

ABA:

abscisic acid

ANOVA:

analysis of variance

A n :

net photosynthetic rate

APX:

ascorbate peroxidase

A sat :

saturate net photosynthetic rate

CAT:

catalase

CCI:

chlorophyll content index

Ci :

intercellular CO2 concentrations

FAA:

free amino acid

Fv/Fm :

maximum quantum efficiency of photosystem II

GPX:

glutathione peroxidase

g s :

stomatal conductance

H2O2 :

hydrogen peroxide

J max :

maximum photosynthetic electron transport rate

NBT:

nitroblue tetrazolium

1O2 :

singlet oxygen

PPFD:

photo-synthetic photon flux density

ROS:

reactive oxygen species

RSWC:

relative soil water content

SOD:

superoxide dismutase

TSS:

total soluble sugars

Vc max :

maximum carboxylation velocity of Rubisco

Ψl :

leaf water potential

Ψo :

osmotic potential

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Acknowledgments

X. L. thanks the China Scholarship Council for supporting his research stay in the Faculty of Science, University of Copenhagen. Technical assistance by Jens Bertelsen and Lene Korsholm Jørgensen is gratefully acknowledged. The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Science, Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Højbakkegaard Allé 13, 2630, Taastrup, Denmark

    Xiangnan Li, Henrik Bak Topbjerg & Fulai Liu

  2. National Engineering and Technology Center for Information Agriculture/ Key Laboratory of Crop Physiology and Ecology in Southern China, Ministry of Agriculture, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, 210095, China

    Xiangnan Li & Dong Jiang

Authors
  1. Xiangnan Li
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  2. Henrik Bak Topbjerg
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  3. Dong Jiang
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  4. Fulai Liu
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Correspondence to Dong Jiang or Fulai Liu.

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Li, X., Topbjerg, H.B., Jiang, D. et al. Drought priming at vegetative stage improves the antioxidant capacity and photosynthesis performance of wheat exposed to a short-term low temperature stress at jointing stage. Plant Soil 393, 307–318 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-015-2499-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-015-2499-0

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