Water deficiency is a major constraint to wheat productivity in drought prone regions. The wheat DELLA‐encoding height‐reducing genes (Rht) are associated with significant increase in grain yield. However, the knowledge of their benefit in dry environments is insufficient. The objective of the study was to examine the effect of induced drought on leaf water content, level of oxidative stress, cell membrane stability, accumulation of osmoprotectants and activity of some antioxidant enzymes in wheat near‐isogenic lines carrying the alleles Rht‐B1b (semidwarfing) and Rht‐B1c (dwarfing) in comparison with the tall control Rht‐B1a. Six‐day‐long water deprivation was imposed at seedling stage. Plants carrying Rht‐B1c and, to a lesser extent, those carrying Rht‐B1b performed better under stress compared with Rht‐B1a in terms of more sustained membrane integrity, enhanced osmoregulation and better antioxidant defence. These differential responses could reflect pleiotropic effects of the Rht‐B1 gene associated with the accumulation of the mutant gene product, that is, altered DELLA proteins, or might be related to allelic variations at neighbouring loci carrying candidate genes for proteins with a major role in plant water regulations and stress adaptation. These findings might be of importance to breeders when introducing Rht‐B1 alleles into wheat cultivars designed to be grown in drought liable regions.
Drought tolerance of two sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) genotypes, cultivated cultivar 1114 and interspecific line H. annuus × H. mollis, was studied under laboratory conditions using PEG-6000. Four levels of osmotic stress (-0.4, -0.6, -0.8 and -1.0 MPa) were created and performances were monitored against a control. Physiological and biochemical stress determining parameters such as malondialdechyde (MDA), proline content, and hydrogen peroxide (H 2 O 2 ) were compared between seedlings of both genotypes. The results indicated that both genotypes have similar responses at four osmotic potentials for all traits studied. All seedling growth parameters such as germination percentage, root length, shoot length, root and shoot dry weight decreased with increasing osmotic stress. MDA, proline, and H 2 O 2 were found to be increased at different osmotic gradients in comparison to control. Cultivar 1114 was less affected than the interspecific line under these stress conditions. The data observed in the experiments revealed that perennial wild H. mollis can hardly be considered to be an excellent candidate of drought tolerance genes.
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