The effect of drought stress on the leaf relative water content and tuber yield of a half-sib family of ‘Katahdin’-derived potato cultivars

Abstract

Drought tolerance in plants is a complex trait involving morphological, physiological, and biochemical mechanisms. Hundreds of genes underlie the response of plants to the stress. For crops, selecting cultivars that can produce economically significant yields under drought is a priority. Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) is considered as drought sensitive crop, although cultivar-dependent differences in tolerance have been described. Cultivar ‘Katahdin’ possesses many appropriate characteristics and is widely used for breeding purposes worldwide; it also has enhanced tolerance to drought stress. In this study, we evaluated cv. ‘Katahdin’ and a half-sib family of 17 Katahdin-derived cultivars for leaf relative water content (RWC) and tuber yield under drought stress. The yields of cultivars ‘Wauseon’, ‘Katahdin’, ‘Magura’, ‘Calrose’, and ‘Cayuga’ did not significantly decline under drought stress. Among these five, Wauseon exhibited the lowest reduction in both tuber yield and relative water content under water shortage. The data showed that ‘Wauseon’ is the most attractive cultivar for studies of molecular and physiological processes under drought and for potato breeding due to low yield losses that correspond with high RWC values. This cultivar can serve as a reservoir of potentially useful genes to develop cultivars with enhanced tolerance to this abiotic stress.

Physiological responses and effective selection criteria of drought tolerant plants

“…These significant differences in phenotypic response under drought stress suggests that tolerant abilities of Korean native plants vary. Similar results were obtained in the research that 'Katahdin', a drought tolerant genotype of potato, showed higher yields than others under drought condition by stopping watering (Soltys-Kalina ., 2016). Therefore, the method to treat drought by stopping watering can be used to screen drought tolerant plants.…”

“…3 D-F RWC and RWL are related to drought tolerance and these parameters have also been proposed as more important indicators of water status in plants such as wheat, potato and peanut. (Farshadfar and Ghasem, 2015;Keles ., 2004;Soltys-Kalina ., 2016;Arunyanark ., 2008). These previous studies allow us to measure the water status parameters on drought stress.…”

“…Several studies have reported plants' physiological and metabolic response to drought stress. Physiological parameters such as relative water content, chlorophyll content have been used as key indicators of drought stress (Soltys-Kalina ., 2016;Ganji Arjenaki ., 2012;Mafakheri ., 2010;Arunyanark ., 2008). Furthermore, for observing metabolic responses to drought stress, proline and total reducing sugar contents are determined (Wu ., 2014;Naser ., 2010 Screening drought tolerant plants 509…”

Divergent strategies displayed by potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) cultivars to cope with soil drought

“…In Poland, an increase in the frequency of soil drought has been observed recently (http://www.climateadaptation.eu/poland/agriculture‐ and‐horticulture/) that resulted in severe loss of tuber yield by 7%–45%. The modern potato cultivars are highly sensitive to soil drought (Sprenger et al., ) although variability in response to soil drought is observed (Monneveux et al., ; Sołtys‐Kalina, Plich, Strzelczyk‐Żyta, Śliwka, & Marczewski, ; Sprenger et al., ). The relatively limited progress made in improving the potato drought resistance seems to be caused by a poor knowledge of the mechanisms responsible for drought resistance in the potato and in consequence, lack of effective methods for selection (Monneveux et al., ; Sprenger et al., ).…”

Evaluation of drought resistance in Iris germanica L. based on subordination function and principal component analysis

“…Currently, many scholars have provided large quantities of reports on the drought resistance of plants, mainly focus on the following fields: the condition of plant growth (Khalid, 2006;Rodriguez et al, 2005;Zhang et al, 2015b), the anatomical structures of leaves (Kutlu et al, 2009;Zhang et al, 2015a), the change of protective enzyme activity (Guan et al, 2015;Weng et al, 2015;Yang et al, 2014b) and the water metabolism and osmotic adjustment of plant tissue (Fu et al, 2016;Soltys-Kalina et al, 2016;Yasmin et al, 2013). With the constant development of more advanced apparatus for research, photosynthesis and chlorophyll fluorescence have also been applied in studies on the drought resistance of plants (Elsheery and Cao, 2008;Hassan, 2006;Liu et al, 2015;Ohashi et al, 2006;Zhang et al, 2015b).…”