Drought mitigation in cocoa (Theobroma cacao L.) through developing tolerant hybrids

BMC Plant Biology

Janaki Seifudeen Minimol¹  Basura Suma¹  Pottekkat Sidharthan Panchami¹  Joseph Jiji²  Baby Juby²  Adiyodi Venugopal Santhoshkumar³ 

[1] Cocoa Research Centre, Kerala Agricultural University, Thrissur, India;Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, College of Agriculture, Kerala Agricultural University, Thrissur, India;Department of Tree Physiology and Breeding, College of Forestry, Kerala Agricultural University, Thrissur, India;

关键词: Nitrate reductase;    Proline;    Superoxide dismutase;    Logistic regression;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12870-021-03352-4

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundCocoa, being a shade loving crop cannot withstand long periods of water stress. Breeding for drought tolerance is the need of the hour due to change in climatic condition and extension of crop to non-traditional areas. Hybrids were produced by crossing four tolerant genotypes in all possible combination. The cross GV1 55 x M 13.12 didn’t yield any fruit due to cross incompatibility between these genotypes. Various biochemical parameters act as the true indicators to select tolerant and susceptible types. The major biochemical parameters considered after imposing stress included proline, nitrate reductase activity, superoxide dismutase content and glycine betaine.ResultsThe drought tolerant hybrids were having high amount of proline, superoxide dismutase enzyme and glycine betaine content. Normally, plants having drought stress show low amount of nitrate reductase activity. However, in case of hybrids, the drought tolerant hybrids were having higher NR activity than the susceptible hybrids. The highest amount of NR was found in the control plants kept at fully irrigated conditions.ConclusionsThis experiment showed the role of different biochemical enzymes and osmolytes in giving tolerance to plants during drought stress. Logistic regression analysis selected proline and nitrate reductase as the two biochemical markers for identifying efficient drought tolerant genotypes in the future breeding programmes.

【 授权许可】

CC BY