Drought priming improves subsequent more severe drought in a drought-sensitive cultivar of olive cv. Chetoui

Drought is a major factor limiting crop production worldwide. The objective of this study was to test whether pre-exposure to drought can enhance the subsequent drought response of a drought sensitive variety of olive cv. Chetoui. Seven-months old olive plants were grown in a controlled conditions and divided into control plants (irrigated daily), primed plants (PP, primed by exposure to drought for 21 days, re-watered for 60 days and then exposed to water depletion for 30 days) and non-primed plants (NPP, well watered for 81 days and immediately followed by intermediate drought as PP). Compared to the non-primed plants, primed plants showed an improvement in biomass production and healthy values of photosynthesis parameters with a higher accumulation of photosynthetic pigments. Additionally, the data of chlorophyll fluorescence were significantly similar to those of control, implying that no photodamage was occurred. Moreover, primed plants exhibited high accumulation of total sugar and proline which lead to the better water status maintenance. The lower level of oxidative status measured in term of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), malondiadehyde (MDA) and electrolyte leakage (EC) in primed plants confirmed the alleviation of oxidative stress. Furthermore, the primed plants possessed more effective oxygen scavenging systems as exemplified by the increased activities of CAT, SOD, GP and high accumulation of polyphenols, resulting in a better maintenance in homeostasis of ROS production. Our investigation is indicative of the result of the benefit memory effects caused by stress pre-exposure in young olive plants cv:Chetoue to overcome subsequent stress.