The relationship between osmotic adjustment and seed yield of Brassica oilseeds was examined at a low rainfall site, Merredin, Western Australia, in 1998 and 1999. Genotypes of B. napus and B. juncea were subjected to rain-fed and irrigated treatments at the seed-fill stage. The B. juncea lines showed small or even no yield reduction under rain-fed conditions, and generally had no yield advantage over the B. napus cultivars where irrigated. In both species, an inverse correlation was found between the magnitude of osmotic adjustment and the percentage of yield reduction. Genotypes with low osmotic adjustment, under rain-fed conditions, had a yield reduction of up to 40%, whereas those with high osmotic adjustment had only 0–10% yield reduction. In contrast, seed oil concentrations decreased from 41% under irrigation to 38% under water deficits and the differences among genotypes were not related to osmotic adjustment. In 1999, osmotic adjustment was again observed for most of the genotypes, but its association with seed yield was not as obvious as in the previous year and usually only the osmotically adjusting B. juncea genotypes maintained a good yield under water deficits. Not all the B. juncea genotypes expressed osmotic adjustment despite the fact that they were generally more drought resistant than the B. napus genotypes. In both years, however, osmotic adjustment was associated with increased harvest indices of B. napus and B. juncea, indicating that this physiological trait can be beneficial to Brassica yield in a water-limited Mediterranean-type environment.
Canola (Brassica napus L.) is a major rotation crop but low yield has limited its adoption by farmers in the low-rainfall regions of southern Australia, where drought events can occur at any stage of crop development. We examined the effect of soil water deficit on osmotic adjustment and seed yield of canola and mustard (B. juncea L.) at the juvenile, elongation, anthesis, or seed-fill stage under glasshouse conditions and post-anthesis drought in the field. At the juvenile and elongation stages, leaves of both canola cv. Monty and mustard line 397-23-2-3-3 adjusted osmotically after exposure to water deficit. In comparison, only the mustard line expressed osmotic adjustment at anthesis and neither genotype adjusted at the seed-fill stage. A single drought event at the juvenile or elongation stage had little effect on growth and seed yield of either genotype, whereas water deficit at anthesis or seed-fill stage reduced seed yield of the canola cultivar by decreasing pod number, seeds per pod, and/or harvest index but largely did not affect the mustard line. In the field where rainfall diminished and plants were subjected to increasing water deficit during the reproductive stages, canola cv. Karoo and mustard line JN25 showed higher osmotic adjustment at anthesis and less yield reduction than the canola cv. Monty. This study suggests that yield sensitivity to water deficit was mainly due to its effect on concurrent formation of yield components, but could be modified by the physiological trait of osmotic adjustment.
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