Soumya Sarathi Ganguly, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur
Under drought stress, it is considered a positive feature to maintain standard plant physiological functions. This is because it indicates healthy plant growth under those stressful conditions. This study was performed to determine the role of Bacillus subtilis HAS31, which is a plant-growth-promoting rhizobacterium (PGPR) in plant growth under drought stress. Drought stress is a water deficit condition that decreases in tuber number and weight and loss of tuber quality.
In this study, two varieties of potato plants, one is drought tolerant (Santae) and the other drought-sensitive (PRI-red), were analyzed for specific trends. The trends were chlorophyll concentration, photosynthesis process, relative water content, osmolytes, antioxidant enzymes and oxidative stress, relative growth rate, tuber and aboveground biomass production. The two varieties of potato plants were inoculated with 100 g of HAS31 after ten days of germination. These were then exposed to different soil relative water contents (SRWC), after which the above trends were analyzed in both varieties of the plant.
Drought stress resulted in a severe decline in relative growth rate (RGR) and dry matter production in both the varieties, which might be due to the reduction in photosynthetic activity. But after re-watering, RGR was restored up to 80% in the drought-stressed plants but dry matter production cannot be restored to such levels. But PGPR inoculated plants showed greater RGR as well as dry matter production, which showed less pre-drought imitations. Under drought stress, the PGPR inoculated plants showed a lower decrease in leaf specific area. However, PRI-red variety resulted in more decrease in leaf specific area (28-56%) than Santae variety (19-44%) with PGPR. Leaf dry matter content (LDMC) was also increased with PGPR (Santae: 21-30%; PRI-red: 19-26%) than without PGPR (Santae: 17-25%; PRI-red: 13-16%) under drought conditions. PGPR treated plants also showed an increased number of tubers and higher weights under drought stress.
There was a decrease in photosynthesis, stomatal conductance, intercellular CO2 concentration, and transpiration rate under drought stress. But PGPR treated plants showed an increase in their leaves’ trends, indicating plant health and growth under stressful conditions. During drought stress, decreased ATP consumption in the Calvin cycle may be due to chloroplast damage that led to photo-inhibition. PGPR treated plants showed higher maintenance of stomatal conductance of CO2, which increased the amount of photosynthetic pigment per unit area of the leaf. Thus, running the photosynthetic reactions and electron transport chain. But PGPR treated plants showed lower ROS and MDA indicating improved ROS scavenging capability by Catalase, Superoxide dismutase, Peroxide dismutase under stress. These antioxidant systems of PGPR treated cultivars prevented the breakdown of the photosynthetic machinery. This study shows PGPR treatment helps the plant in various ways, ultimately promoting growth under drought stress. These results can be used to further research drought tolerance and promote yield in potato and different other plants.
Also read: Estimation of Nitrogen and Chlorophyll Content in Tea Leaves
Reference: Batool, T., Ali, S., Seleiman, M., Naveed, N., Ali, A., Ahmed, K., Abid, M., Rizwan, M., Shahid, M., Alotaibi, M., Al-Ashkar, I. and Mubushar, M., 2020. Plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria alleviates drought stress in potato in response to suppressive oxidative stress and antioxidant enzymes activities. Scientific Reports, 10(1).
Doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-73489-z
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Very informative. Nice.
It’s too good.