Some plant species are capable of significant reduction of xylem embolism during recovery from drought despite stem water potential remains negative. However, the functional biology underlying this process is elusive. We subjected poplar trees to drought stress followed by a period of recovery. Water potential, hydraulic conductivity, gas exchange, xylem sap pH, and carbohydrate content in sap and woody stems were monitored in combination with an analysis of carbohydrate metabolism, enzyme activity, and expression of genes involved in sugar metabolic and transport pathways. Drought resulted in an alteration of differential partitioning between starch and soluble sugars. Upon stress, an increase in the starch degradation rate and the overexpression of sugar symporter genes promoted the efflux of disaccharides (mostly maltose and sucrose) to the apoplast. In turn, the efflux activity of the sugar‐proton cotransporters caused a drop in xylem pH. The newly acidic environment induced the activity of apoplastic invertases leading to the accumulation of monosaccharides in the apoplast, thus providing the main osmoticum necessary for recovery. During drought and recovery, a complex network of coordinated molecular and biochemical signals was activated at the interface between xylem and parenchyma cells that appeared to prime the xylem for hydraulic recovery.

In this study 18 new corn varieties consist of 15 foreign early and mid-mature single cross hybrids and 3 Iranian commercial hybrids (KSC704, KSC647and DC370) were evaluated at two sowing date (5 and 20 June) based on RCBD with 3 replications at Khorasan Razavi Agricultural Research Centre, Mashhad, Iran on 2009. This study showed that among all hybrids, EXP1 (16.03 ton/ha) and OSSK617 (15.51 ton/ha) had the highest yields in early planting (5 June) and EXP1 (16.52 ton/ha) and KDC370 (16.22 ton/ha) produced the highest, yields in late planting (20 June). Results of this experiment also indicated that yield component such as 300 kernel weight, kernel no. per row, kernel depth and ear length were adversely affected in delay planting condition. Delay planting reduced 300-kernel weight, kernel no. per row, kernel depth and ear length. Results of cluster analysis using Wards' method divided the corn hybrids into 4 different clusters (low intra-group and high extra-group similarities). From the results of cluster analysis it is recommended to make crosses among genotypes in Clus1 (ZP434, BC582 and EXP2 hybrids) and Clus4 (ZP684, SIMON and KSC647) in breeding programmes. Classifying genotypes according to their agronomic traits with sophisticated multivariate techniques could reduce the time period and expenditure for crop improvement.

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