Lettuce plants treated with L-pyroglutamic acid increase yield under water deficit stress
2019
Jiménez Arias, David | García Machado, Francisco Javier | Morales-Sierra, Sarai | Luis Jorge, Juan Cristo | Suarez, Emma | Hernández, Mercedes | Valdés, Francisco | Borges, Andrés A. | Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (España)
Water scarcity is one of the main challenges faced by modern agriculture, leading to a substantial drop in crop productivity and a threat to food security. Thus, novel agricultural approaches are necessary and urgent to face this problem. Some natural compounds such as amino acids have been shown to increase yield and mitigate the effects of drought stress. In this study, we demonstrate that the application of pyroglutamic acid (PG) is capable of increasing lettuce yield, under field conditions with 30% less than optimal irrigation. PG treatment showed a clearly protective effect in stressed plants, enhancing their fresh weight by 37% and yield by 31%, in comparison to untreated plants. PG appears to promote drought tolerance effects in deficit irrigated lettuce plants, with several advantages. It acts by enhancing photosynthesis rate and antioxidant defences, while maintaining osmotic and water balance, without toxicity to soil microorganisms. This illustrates the potential use of PG to combat productivity losses due to water scarcity.
Afficher plus [+] Moins [-]This work was supported by Programa Estatal de Investigación, Desarrollo e Innovación Orientada a los Retos de la Sociedad SAF2013-48399-R from Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (Spain). F.J.G-M., PhD fellowship of Universidad de La Laguna, was supported by a research contract from Caja Siete.
Afficher plus [+] Moins [-]Peer Reviewed
Afficher plus [+] Moins [-]Mots clés AGROVOC
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