1Centre for Plant Breeding and Genetics, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, India
2International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, Hyderabad, India
3Institut de Recherche pour le Development (IRD), Université de Montpellier, UMR DIADE, 911 Avenue Agropolis, BP 64501, 34394, Montpellier, Cedex 5, France.
*E-Mail: vincent.vadez@ird.fr, v.vadez@cgiar.org
Online published on 11 January, 2019.
Plant adaptation to drought depends on both inherited and adaptive characteristic of water conservative traits. Expression of limited transpiration rate (TR) under high vapor pressure deficit (VPD) conditions could be one of the potential sources of soil water conservation for drought tolerance. Large genetic variation for limited TR has been identified in the comparison of three major C4 cereals viz., maize, pearl millet and sorghum under elevating VPD. The total amount of water transpired under elevating VPD by these three cereals not found dependent on leaf area, in fact, it was reflected more by the variation in transpiration rate. Pearl millet showed better adaptation of limitation of TR than maize and sorghum under high VPD regimes.
Cereals, transpiration, vapor pressure deficit, breakpoint and variability
