Impact of water deficit on growth, productivity, and water use efficiency in potato genotypes (Solanum tuberosum L.)
Drought stress, a serious constraint affecting the yields of almost all major crops, is expected to get worse from global climate change and human population expansion. Modern cultivars of potato (Solanum tuberosum L), the fourth most important food crop worldwide, are highly sensitive to drought stress. We evaluated a range of agro-physiological traits in 15 potato genotypes under well-watered (WW) and water deficit (WD) conditions to understand the impact of drought stress on yield and to identify traits to select drought tolerant potato genotypes. Our results showed that the drought stress tolerant genotypes, CIP392797.22 (UNICA), CIP397077.16, CIP398190.89, CIP398208.219, and CIP398208.620 were able to preferentially put limited water toward tuber production rather than biomass. These genotypes have high tuber production under WW conditions and increased photosynthetic activity and water use efficiency under WD. Variables such as harvest index and SPAD showed high broad-sense heritability with 0.98 and 0.86 respectively suggesting they can be used to select drought-tolerant genotypes in breeding programs.
Keywords: abiotic stress, harvest index, physiological traits, drought tolerance, SPAD.
Repository: https://github.com/flavjack/20130515LM