Yield, water use and yield response factor of flue‐cured tobacco under different levels of water supply at various growth stages

Abstract

The study aiming to determine the effect of different irrigation regimes and water stress imposed at different growth stages on water use and leaf yield of flue-cured tobacco plant (Nicotiana tabacum L.), was carried out during the period of 2000-03. The field trials were conducted on a silty loam Entisol soil, poor in organic matter and rich in potassium on the fields of the Atatürk Soil and Water Resources Research Institute in Kırklareli. A randomised complete block design with three replications was applied and K-326 Virginia tobacco cultivar was used in the experiment. Three known stages of the plant, vegetative (V), yield formation (F) and ripening (R), were considered and a total of 14 (including rain-fed) irrigation treatments were applied. All the experimental treatments were irrigated on the same day in each growth stage with the amount of water required to fill the 0-90 cm soil depth to field capacity, and three levels of water amount reductions (0, 40 and 60%) were applied at each development stage. A single irrigation was applied during the second part of the vegetative stage, while subsequent water applications were at the 50 and 70% depletion level during the yield formation and ripening stages, respectively. Results of the 3-year study show that either total irrigation water amounts and number of applications, or leaf yields are closely related to precipitation rate and distribution during the growing year. While the seasonal irrigation amounts applied in the adequate irrigation treatment (VFR) were greater (945 and 815 mm respectively in the drier experimental years of 2000 and 2001), they were much lower (587 mm) during the rainy year of 2003. The highest leaf yields in the range of 5170-6050 kg ha À1 were obtained from the fully irrigated programme (VFR), from treatments with 40% reduction in irrigation water amount at any stage (V 1 FR; VF 1 R, VFR 1 ) and irrigation programme (FR) including omitted irrigation at vegetative stage and fully irrigated during the next two stages. It was also determined that close linear relationships exist between seasonal evapotranspiration rate and leaf yield, and seasonal evapotranspiration deficit and relative yield reduction, during each of the experimental years. Copyright

Response of Virginia (flue-cured) tobacco genotypes to water-deficit stress

“…The advantages of adequate soil-water content and appropriate irrigation in flue-cured tobacco production have been reported [18][19][20][21][22]. It was found that tobacco was the most sensitive to soil-water deficit during the early developmental stages and period of leaf expansion [23,24]. Moreover, water deficit of different severity at the flowering and ripening stages of tobacco delayed harvesting time and resulted in a reduction of plant height, leaf number and leaf area [20][21][22]25].…”

“…However, the amount of rainfall is unpredictable and generally insufficient during the critical growing stage of the plants [26]. Although tobacco is relatively droughtstress tolerant plant per se, reports demonstrated the loss of quality leaf yield in response to water-deficit stress [22,24,[27][28][29]. Thus, improving the drought tolerance and water-use efficiency of flue-cured tobacco is one of the important subjects of studies that include both conventional breeding approaches and effective drought-tolerant screening systems.…”

“…Recently there has been an increasing interest in identifying attributes that contribute to water-deficit resistance and which can be used as selection criteria in tobacco-breeding programs [20,22,24,25]. However, the water-deficit tolerance experiments were performed mainly in fields where the growing conditions were difficult to control.…”

The Role of Tobacco Aquaporin1 in Improving Water Use Efficiency, Hydraulic Conductivity, and Yield Production Under Salt Stress

“…Research on its water and CO 2 transport and stress resistance activities has progressed in parallel, but without much interaction. Furthermore, tobacco plants are known to significantly improve their WUE under drought conditions (Cakir and Cebi, 2009) and are suggested to have C4 photosynthesis characteristics in stems, petioles, and transmitting tract cells (Jansen et al, 1992;Hibberd and Quick, 2002). Nevertheless, to the best of our knowledge, a specific role for AQPs in these mechanisms has never been suggested.…”

Determination of yield response factors for different varieties of teff

“…The study of yield response factors to water stress at different growth stages plays a great role in efficient irrigation water management (Kipkorir et al, 2002; Singh et al, 1987). Water stress (deficit irrigation) refers to a water management strategy in which irrigation intentionally fails to refill the root zone to field capacity (Asres, 2023; Cakir & Cebi, 2010; Stoep, 2015). To determine the K y of different varieties of teff, this study was carried out with different varieties of teff under different levels of deficit irrigation.…”