Electrical signaling related to water stress acclimation

Abstract

Nowadays, the debate involving climate change concerns safeguarding the water resources of the planet, an extremely important topic also in agriculture. In particular, the problem of scarce water availability becomes more and more pressing every year and at the agronomic level it is necessary to make intelligent use of water without affecting the quality and quantity of production. The aim of this work is to understand when the plant is under water stress conditions at the electrical signal level, in order to achieve the information of true needs of water in plants. The proposed methodology considered the plant black kale cultivated in hydroponic condition: the plants were based in an electrically isolated environment, with electrodes inserted in their stems to acquire and study the electrical activity associated with determined irrigation cycles. By using different stop/flow water irrigation regimes, an acclimated and a not-acclimated group of plants have been selected to experience different periods of prolonged water flow stress. Results indicated that the evaluation of a measure of statistical dispersion, the daily variance of the electrical resistance, can be closely related to the induced water stop/flow stress. Moreover, experiencing an acclimation stage has shown to allow a better recovery response for the plant.

Keywords

• Plant electrical signal
• Stem resistance
• Water stress acclimation
• Brassicaceae
• Statistical analysis