Assessing the effects of in vitro imposed water stress on pineapple growth in relation to biochemical stress indicators using polynomial regression analysis

Abstract

Knowing the mechanisms that operate under water stress in commercial crops, particularly those that can affect productivity, such as phenolic or cell wall metabolism, is becoming increasingly important in a scenario of global climate change. However, our understanding of how to analyse statistically the relationships between these commonly used biochemical markers of water stress and growth in crops like pineapple, needs to be improved. In the present work, we have addressed the question of whether polynomial regression analysis can be used to describe the influence of selected plant metabolites (chlorophylls, carotenoids, phenolics and aldehydes) on shoot biomass, in response to a mannitol-induced water stress in temporary immersion bioreactors (TIBs). Polynomial regression analysis has been applied to investigate plant stress responses in many species but is very seldom used in in vitro screening studies. Here, the relationship between biochemical indicators (x; independent variable) and shoot growth (y; dependent variable) has been characterised, with y modelled as an nth degree polynomial in x. This statistical approach accommodated for the non-linear (curvilinear) relationships between variables, and the results showed that shoot biomass was negatively, and significantly correlated with soluble phenolics, cell wall-linked phenolics and other aldehydes (characterised by “High” R2 values).

Effect of plant growth regulators DA-6 and COS on drought tolerance of pineapple through bromelain and oxidative stress

“…Bromelain is a collective name for proteolytic enzymes or proteases and describes a crude extract of pineapples with endopeptidase activity [ 38 ] that can be taken from tissues, including the stems, fruits, and leaves, of the pineapple and other plant species of the family Bromeliaceae [ 39 ]. Bromelain has several industrial and biomedical applications and has been used in the food, baking, leather, textile, and cosmetic industries [ 40 ].…”

“…In recent years, a series of studies examined the high yield and resilience to adversity of pineapple, including various studies on flowering [ 43 – 46 ], reduction of browning [ 47 – 50 ], quality and harvest [ 51 – 54 ], growth and ripening changes [ 55 ], salt tolerance [ 56 ], tissue culture and breeding [ 57 – 60 ], growth of seedlings [ 61 ], irrigation of cultivation [ 62 ], the effects of drought on growth [ 39 ], and the effects of high temperatures postharvest [ 63 ]. Despite pineapples being drought-tolerant, extreme and persistent drought exert negative impacts on yield, requiring attention to be paid to this issue.…”

Growth of pineapple plantlets during acclimatisation can be monitored through automated image analysis of the canopy

“…The economic importance of pineapple is emphasised by the fact that the gross production value of the 24.8 million metric tons of fruit that are produced annually, is in the region of 9 x 109 US$ (4). However, a severe restriction that hampers production is inadequate access to pineapple planting material of good quality (5,6). To address this problem, alternative propagation methods have been investigated.…”