Understanding the Mechanism of Water Use Difference in Legume Vegetables by Means of Physiological Phenotypes Combined with Functional Analysis
Published:10 Feb.2023 Source:Hortic Res
Vegetable soybean and cowpea are related warm-season legumes showing contrasting leaf water use behaviors under similar root drought stresses, whose mechanisms are not well understood.
Recently, Horticure Research launched (Advance Access) a research paper by Xu Pei, a research group of China University of Metrology, entitled “Understanding water conservation vs. profligation traits in vegetable legumes through a physio-transcriptomic-functional approach”.
This study combined with physio-transcriptomic-functional approach, revealed the formation mechanism of water conservation and water profligation traits by multiple means. Through continuous dynamic monitoring of the transpiration rate of cowpea and soybean under progressive drought (normal irrigation, mild drought, moderate drought, severe drought and rehydration conditions) through the high-throughput functional physiological phenotyping (FPP) platform, it was found that the water use of cowpea was more conservative than that of soybean under early soil drought conditions, while the transpiration rate was higher under long-term drought conditions.