Deblonde, P
Ledent, Jean-François
[UCL]
The main objective of this study was to compare the effects of moderate drought treatments on the intercepted radiation and light conversion coefficient (LCC). Another objective was to determine the impact of such moderate droughts on the evolution of the fraction of dry matter partitioned to the tubers in genotypes of contrasted maturity. Six potato genotypes contrasted for their drought tolerance and their earliness were subjected to three levels of water supply in two field trials in 1995 and 1996. The differential behaviour among cultivars found both years for ground cover duration and intercepted radiation was affected by the level of water supply. Ranking based on tuber yield was consistent with ranking based on intercepted radiation and ground cover duration, showing the interest of these parameters for characterising cultivars and discriminating among them. Stronger reductions of intercepted radiation were observed when the drought was applied early in the season, as in 1996, rather than around the middle of the season, as in 1995 (-200 MJ.m(-2) in 1996 instead of -84 MJ.m(-2) in 1995). When drought was applied around the middle of the season as in 1995, the drought treatment significantly reduced LCC but had no significant effect on intercepted radiation. The evolution of the fraction of dry matter which is partitioned to the tubers was not influenced by our moderate drought conditions and therefore did not hasten earliness of maturity. Earlier maturing cultivars showed significantly higher rates of increase in the fraction of dry matter which is partitioned to the tubers than later cultivars.
Bibliographic reference |
Deblonde, P ; Ledent, Jean-François. Effects of moderate drought conditions on crop growth parameters and earliness of six potato cultivars under field conditions. In: Agronomie, Vol. 20, no. 6, p. 595-608 (2000) |
Permanent URL |
http://hdl.handle.net/2078.1/43253 |