Safflower (Carthamus tinctorius L.) crop adaptation to residual moisture stress: conserved water use and canopy temperature modulation are better adaptive mechanisms

Chennamsetti Manikanta; Ratnakumar Pasala; Sivasakthi Kaliamoorthy; P S Basavaraj; Brij Bihari Pandey; Dinesh Rahul Vadlamudi; Mukta Nidamarty; Arti Guhey; Palchamy Kadirvel

doi:10.7717/peerj.15928

Safflower (Carthamus tinctorius L.) crop adaptation to residual moisture stress: conserved water use and canopy temperature modulation are better adaptive mechanisms

PeerJ. 2023 Sep 11:11:e15928. doi: 10.7717/peerj.15928. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Chennamsetti Manikanta^#^{1

2}, Ratnakumar Pasala^#^{1

2}, Sivasakthi Kaliamoorthy³, P S Basavaraj⁴, Brij Bihari Pandey¹, Dinesh Rahul Vadlamudi^{1

2}, Mukta Nidamarty¹, Arti Guhey^{1

2}, Palchamy Kadirvel¹

Affiliations

¹ ICAR-Indian Institute of Oilseeds Research, Rajendranagar, Hyderabad, India.
² Indira Gandhi Agricultural University, Raipur, Chhattisgarh, India.
³ ICRISAT-International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics Patancheru, Greater Hyderabad, Telangana, India.
⁴ ICAR-National Institute of Abiotic Stress Management, Baramati, Maharashtra, India.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Oilseeds with high productivity and tolerance to various environmental stresses are in high demand in the food and industrial sectors. Safflower, grown under residual moisture in the semi-arid tropics, is adapted to moisture stress at certain levels. However, a substantial reduction in soil moisture has a significant impact on its productivity. Therefore, assessing genetic variation for water use efficiency traits like transpiration efficiency (TE), water uptake, and canopy temperature depression (CTD) is essential for enhancing crop adaptation to drought. The response of safflower genotypes (n = 12) to progressive soil moisture depletion was studied in terms of water uptake, TE, and CTD under a series of pot and field experiments. The normalised transpiration rate (NTR) in relation to the fraction of transpirable soil water (FTSW) varied significantly among genotypes. The genotypes A-1, Bhima, GMU-2347, and CO-1 had higher NTR-FTSW threshold values of 0.79 (R² = 0.92), 0.74 (R² = 0.96), 0.71 (R² = 0.96), and 0.71 (R² = 0.91), respectively, whereas GMU-2644 had the lowest 0.38 (R² = 0.93). TE was high in genotype GMU-2347, indicating that it could produce maximum biomass per unit of water transpired. At both the vegetative and reproductive stages, significant positive relationships between TE, SPAD chlorophyll metre reading (SCMR) (p < 0.01) and CTD (p < 0.01) were observed under field conditions by linear regression. The genotypes with high FTSW-NTR thresholds, high SCMR, and low CTD may be useful clues in identifying a genotype's ability to adapt to moisture stress. The findings showed that the safflower genotypes A-1, Bhima, GMU-2347, and CO-1 exhibited an early decline and regulated water uptake by conserving it for later growth stages under progressive soil water depletion.

Keywords: Canopy temperature depression; Safflower; Soil moisture depletion; Transpiration efficiency.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Biological Transport
Carthamus tinctorius*
Chlorophyll
Cold Temperature
Temperature

Substances

SPAD
Chlorophyll

Grants and funding

This research received the funding from the Department of Biotechnology, Govt. of India. (No. BT/AG/NETWORK/SAFFLOWER/2019-20). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.