Abstract
Within the current climate context, freshwater resources have become scarce. Agriculture, especially in rain-fed conditions, should deal with the need for increasing yields to contribute to food security under limiting water availability. Exploring underutilized crops such as Chenopodium quinoa (quinoa) has become a unique opportunity as some of these crops possess the ability to tolerate several abiotic stresses, including drought. In line with this, this work aimed at evaluating the genotype-dependent response to drought by comparing the performance of different European-adapted cultivars (F14, F15, F16, and Titicaca). The results show that the cultivars here evaluated presented different mechanisms to cope with long-term water stress, including changes in phenology, morphology, or physiology. Among them, the cultivar F16 might be the most promising genotype to grow under water-limiting conditions as it was able to increase Water Use Efficiency (WUE), reducing the stomatal conductance and keeping CO2 assimilation rates similar to well-watered conditions, maintaining seed yield and increasing harvest index (HI) under water deficit conditions. Furthermore, based on these results, we propose a model in which differences between a tolerant and a sensitive genotype are presented. Altogether, we believe that this work will significantly contribute to broadening our understanding regarding how quinoa responds to long-term water stress highlighting genotype-related differences that will allow the selection of the best adapted genotypes for water-limiting environments.
Highlight Quinoa physiological, phenological, and morphological distinct responses to long-term water stress depending on the genotype.
Competing Interest Statement
The authors have declared no competing interest.
Footnotes
Isacc Maestro Gaitán: Isaac.maestro{at}uam.es; Sara Granado Rodríguez; sara.granado{at}uam.es; María Isabel Orús Orús: mabel.orus{at}uam.es; Luis Bolaños Rosa: luis.bolarios{at}uam.es; María Reguera Blázquez: maria.reguera{at}uam.es; Javier Matías Prieto: javier.matias{at}juntaex.es; Verónica Cruz Sobrado: veronica.cruz{at}juntaex.es;
Abbreviations
- ETR
- electron transportation rate
- DW
- dry weight
- FW
- fresh weight
- GSW
- stomatal conductance
- HI
- harvest index
- Fv/Fm
- maximum quantum yield of photosystem II
- ΦPSII
- efficiency of photosystem II
- NPQ
- non-photochemical quenching
- SWC
- soil water content
- WD
- water-deficit
- WW
- well-watered.