Journal
FRONTIERS IN PLANT SCIENCE
Volume 8, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
FRONTIERS MEDIA SA
DOI: 10.3389/fpls.2017.01976
Keywords
Helianthus annuus; sunflower; biomass allocation; transpiration efficiency; genotypic variability
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Funding
- Agencia Nacional de Promocion Cientifica y Tecnologica [PID 2007-0066, PICT 2010-0006]
- Instituto Nacional de Tecnologia Agropecuaria [PNOLE-031052, PNCYO-1127042]
- Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Tecnicas (CONICET)
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Increased transpiration efficiency (the ratio of biomass to water transpired, TE) could lead to increased drought tolerance under some water deficit scenarios. Intrinsic (i.e., leaf-level) TE is usually considered as the primary source of variation in whole-plant TE, but empirical data usually contradict this assumption. Sunflower has a significant variability in TE, but a better knowledge of the effect of leaf and plant-level traits could be helpful to obtain more efficient genotypes for water use. The objective of this study was, therefore, to assess if genotypic variation in whole-plant TE is better related to leaf- or plant-level traits. Three experiments were conducted, aimed at verifying the existence of variability in whole-plant TE and whole-plant and leaf-level traits, and to assess their correlation. Sunflower public inbred lines and a segregating population of recombinant inbred lines were grown under controlled conditions and subjected to well-watered and water-deficit treatments. Significant genotypic variation was found for TE and related traits. These differences in whole-plant transpiration efficiency, both between genotypes and between plants within each genotype, showed no association to leaf-level traits, but were significantly and negatively correlated to biomass allocation to leaves and to the ratio of leaf area to total biomass. These associations are likely of a physiological origin, and not only a consequence of genetic linkage in the studied population. These results suggest that genotypic variation for biomass allocation could be potentially exploited as a source for increased transpiration efficiency in sunflower breeding programmes. It is also suggested that phenotyping for TE in this species should not be restricted to leaf-level measurements, but also include measurements of plant-level traits, especially those related to biomass allocation between photosynthetic and non-photosynthetic organs.
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