Maize (Zea mays L.) physiological responses to drought and rewatering, and the associations with water stress degree

Fu Cai, Yushu Zhang, Na Mi, Huiqing Ming, Shujie Zhang, Hui Zhang and Xianli Zhao

Agricultural Water Management, 2020, vol. 241, issue C

Abstract: A thorough understanding of the plant drought response mechanism and the relationships between plant functional traits and drought will help to improve the key biophysical process parameterization scheme in ecological and crop growth models. In this study, a drought level evaluation indicator, named water stress degree (Dws), was established by synthetically considering soil water content (WC), evapotranspiration, and drought duration to obtain a quantitative description of drought level. The maize physiological and functional traits responses to drought and subsequent rewatering were also investigated. Drought-rewatering field experiments with no water addition for 40 days during the vegetative period (VP) and reproductive period (RP) were respectively conducted at Jinzhou Agrometerological Experimental Station, northeast China in 2014 and 2016. The Dws values indicated that there were significant differences between growth stages and between years because the environmental conditions in 2014 and 2016 were different during the maize growth periods. Furthermore, Dws was larger in 2016 than in 2014 during the VP and RP. Leaf photosynthesis had a certain adaptability to drought, and the transpiration rate (E) drought response (DR) was quicker than the photosynthetic rate (Pn) response, and Pn recovery was greater than E recovery when the plants were rewatered during the VP. However, leaf photosynthesis is more sensitive to drought and less available to recover as normal in subsequent rewatering during the RP than the VP, which was intensified as Dws rose between 2014 and 2016. In addition, the leaf WC drought response was faster than the photosynthetic DR during the VP and RP, and leaf and stalk WCs responded more rapidly to drought during the VP than the RP. The decrease in ear WC during the earlier grouting period was larger in the VP than in the RP treatment. However, the drought-induced decrease in daily sap flow rate (DSF) during the RP was larger than during the VP, while the differences in DSF drought response and DSF recovery during rewatering were attributed to the inter-annual variation in Dws. Furthermore, the drought-caused reductions in leaf, stalk, and plant total dry matters and in leaf and stalk WCs had positively exponential or linear relationships with Dws. The results can help to understand the disaster-causing mechanism of drought-stricken maize.

Keywords: Maize; Drought level; Transpiration; Photosynthesis; Organ water content; Dry matter (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378377420303036
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:agiwat:v:241:y:2020:i:c:s0378377420303036

DOI: 10.1016/j.agwat.2020.106379

Access Statistics for this article

Agricultural Water Management is currently edited by B.E. Clothier, W. Dierickx, J. Oster and D. Wichelns

More articles in Agricultural Water Management from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().