Abstract
Drought is a common stress in crop growth that limits plant growth, development and yield. Therefore, we explored the feasibility of bio-saving water for tomato production by grafting with drought-tolerant seedlings. In this experiment, we carried out grafting on different drought-tolerant tomato seedlings to study the effects of grafting on root growth and plant nutrient uptake under drought stress. We measured the effects of grafting on root growth, nutrient uptake, carbohydrate content and organic acids in tomato leaves and roots under drought stress. The growth and vigor of roots as well as the concentration of N, P, K, Ca and Mg of the plant were significantly inhibited by drought. The nutrient content was significantly decreased in leaves, and the content of carbohydrates and organic acids was increased in both leaves and roots under drought conditions. Treatment with drought-tolerant tomato seedlings significantly enhanced root growth and increased the element content under water deficit conditions compared to those grafted with drought-susceptible seedlings. In the plants grafted with drought-tolerant seedlings, the contents of carbohydrates and organic acids increased. Our results indicated that the grafted tomato seedlings showed beneficial root growth because drought-tolerant seedlings increased in inorganic and organic osmotic adjustment substances that helped the plants absorb more water and promoted plant growth.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abdellaoui R, Boughalleb F, Chebil Z, Mahmoudi M, Belgacem AO (2018) Physiological, anatomical and antioxidant responses to salinity in the mediterranean pastoral grass plant stipa lagascae. Crop Pasture Sci 68(9):872
Albacete A, Martínez-Andújar C, Martínez-Pérez A, Thompson AJ, Dodd IC, Pérez-Alfocea F (2015) Unravelling rootstock × scion interactions to improve food security. J Exp Bot 66:2211–2226
Alexieva V, Sergiev I, Mapelli S, Karanov E (2010) The effect of drought and ultraviolet radiation on growth and stress markers in pea and wheat. Plant Cell Environ 24(12):1337–1344
Altunlu H, Gul A (2012) Increasing drought tolerance of tomato plants by grafting. Acta Hortic 960:183–190
Andrade A, Escalante M, Vigliocco A, del Carmen TM, Alemano S (2017) Involvement of jasmonates in responses of sunflower (Helianthus annuus) seedlings to moderate water stress. Plant Growth Regul 83(3):501–511
Baker CJ, Mock NM (1994) An improved method for monitoring cell death in cell suspension and leaf disc assays using Evans blue. Plant Cell Tissue Organ Cult 39:7–12
Blum A (2017) Osmotic adjustment is a prime drought stress adaptive engine in support of plant production. Plant Cell Environ 40(1):4–10
Boyer JS (1982) Plant productivity and environment. Science 218:443–448
Bremner JM (1965) Total nitrogen. In: Black, C.A., Evans, D.D., White, I.L., Ensminger, L.E., Clark, F.E. (Eds.), Methods of soil analysis. Agron Monogr 9:1149–1178
Choudhury B, Mitra S, Biswas AK (2010) Regulation of sugar metabolism in rice (Oryza sativa L.) seedlings under arsenate toxicity and its improvement by phosphate. Physiol Mol Biol Plants 16:59–68
Clauw P, Coppens F, Korte A, Herman D, Slabbinck B, Dhondt S, Van Daele T, De Milde L, Vermeersch M, Maleux K, Maere S, Gonzalez N, Inzé D (2016) Leaf growth response to mild drought: natural variation in arabidopsis sheds light on trait architecture. Plant Cell 28(10):2417–2434
Colla G, Rouphael Y, Cardarelli M, Salerno A, Rea E (2010) The effectiveness of grafting to improve alkalinity tolerance in watermelon. Environ Exp Bot 68(3):283–291
Farhangiabriz S, Torabian S (2017) Antioxidant enzyme and osmotic adjustment changes in bean seedlings as affected by biochar under salt stress. Ecotoxicol Environ Saf 137:64–70
Huang Y, Jiao Y, Nawaz MA, Chen C, Liu L, Lu Z, Kong Q, Chen F, Bie Z (2016a) Improving magnesium uptake, photosynthesis and antioxidant enzyme activities of watermelon by grafting onto pumpkin rootstock under low magnesium. Plant Soil 409(1–2):229–246
Huang Y, Zhao L, Kong Q, Cheng F, Niu M, Xie J, Muhammad AN, Bie Z (2016b) Comprehensive mineral nutrition analysis of watermelon grafted onto two different rootstocks. Hortic Plant J 2(2):105–113
Jiang L, Wang Y, Zhang S, He R, Li W, Han J, Cheng X (2017) Tomato SlDREB1 gene conferred the transcriptional activation of drought-induced gene and an enhanced tolerance of the transgenic arabidopsis to drought stress. Plant Growth Regul 81(1):131–145
Jones DL (1998) Organic acids in the rhizosphere-a critical review. Plant Soil 205:25–44
Jones DL, Darah PR, Kochian LV (1996) Critical evaluation of organic acid mediated iron dissolution in the rhizosphere and its potential role in root iron uptake. Plant Soil 180(1):57–66
Jover S, Belén MA, Juan RG, Legaz F, Primomillo E, Forner JM, Angeles FG (2012) Influence of rootstocks on photosynthesis in navel orange leaves: effects on growth, yield, and carbohydrate distribution. Crop Sci 52(52):13
Kalaji HM, Račková L, Paganová V, Swoczyna T, Rusinowski S, Sitko K (2018) Can chlorophyll-a fluorescence parameters be used as bio-indicators to distinguish between drought and salinity stress in Tilia cordata mill? Environ Exp Bot 152:149–157
Koevoets IT, Venema JH, Elzenga JTM, Testerink C (2016) Rootswithstanding their environment: exploiting root system architecture responsesto abiotic stress to improve crop tolerance. Front Plant Sci 7:1335
Kumar P, Rouphael Y, Cardarelli M, Colla G (2017) Vegetable grafting as a tool to improve drought resistance and water use efficiency. Front Plant Sci 8:1130
Liu J, Li J, Su X, Xia Z (2014) Grafting improves drought tolerance by regulating antioxidant enzyme activities and stress-responsive gene expression in tobacco. Environ Exp Bot 107:173–179
Luo LJ (2010) Breeding for water-saving and drought-resistance rice (WDR) in China. J Exp Bot 61:3509–3517
Marsic NK, Vodnik D, Mikulicpetkovsek M, Veberic R, Sircelj H (2018) Photosynthetic traits of plants and the biochemical profile of tomato fruits are influenced by grafting, salinity stress, and growing season. J Agric Food Chem 66(22):5439–5450
Martínez-Ballesta MC, Muries B, Mota-Cadenas C, Carvajal M (2010) Physiological aspects of rootstock–scion interactions. Sci Hortic 127:112–118
Ma X, Wang G, Zhao W, Yang M, Ma N, Kong F, Dong X, Meng Q (2017) SlCOR413IM1: a novel cold-regulation gene from tomato, enhances drought stress tolerance in tobacco. J Plant Physiol 216:88–99
Moles TM, Mariotti L, De LP, Guglielminetti L, Picciarelli P, Scartazza A (2018) Drought induced changes of leaf-to-root relationships in two tomato genotypes. Plant Physiol Biochem 128:24–31
Nafziger ED, Koller HR (1976) Influence of leaf starch concentration on co2 assimilation in soybean. Plant Physiol 57(4):560–563
Nawaz MA, Imtiaz M, Kong Q, Cheng F, Ahmed W, Huang Y, Bie Z (2016) Grafting: a technique to modify ion accumulation in horticultural crops. Front Plant Sci 7:1457
Nebauer SG, Renau-Morata B, Guardiola JL, Molina RV (2011) Photosynthesis down-regulation precedes carbohydrate accumulation under sink limitation in citrus. Tree Physiol 31(2):169–177
Pagliarani C, Vitali M, Ferrero M, Vitulo N, Incarbone M, Lovisolo C, Valle G, Schubert A (2017) Accumulation of MicroRNAs differentially modulated by drought is affected by grafting in grapevine. Plant Physiol 173(4):2180–2195
Pompeiano A, Patton AJ (2017) Growth and root architecture responses of zoysiagrass to changes in fertilizer nitrate: urea ratio. J Plant Nutr Soil Sci 180(5):528–534
Richter JA, Erban A, Kopka J, Zörb C (2015) Metabolic contribution to salt stress in two maize hybridswith contrasting resistance. Plant Sci 233:107–115
Rook F, Corke F, Card R, Munz G, Smith C, Bevan MW (2010) Impaired sucrose-induction mutants reveal the modulation of sugar-induced starch biosynthetic gene expression by abscisic acid signalling. Plant J 26(4):421–433
Rouphael Y, Kyriacou MC, Colla G (2018) Vegetable grafting: a toolbox for securing yield stability under multiple stress conditions. Front Plant Sci 8:2255
Sagoe CI, Ando T, Kouno K, Nagaoka T (1998) Relative importance of protons and solution calcium concentration in phosphate rock dissolution by organic acids. Soil Sci Plant Nutr 44(4):617–625
Sánchez-Rodríguez E, Leyva R, Constán-Aguilar C, Romero L, Ruiz JM (2014) How does grafting affect the ionome of cherry tomato plants under water stress? Soil Sci Plant Nutri 60:145–155
Sánchez-Rodríguez E, Romero L, Ruiz JM (2013) Role of grafting in resistance to water stress in tomato plants: ammonia production and assimilation. J Plant Growth Regul 32:831–842
Savvas D, Colla G, Rouphael Y, Schwarz D (2010) Amelioration of heavy metal and nutrient stress in fruit vegetables by grafting. Sci Hortic 127(2):156–161
Schwarz D, Rouphael Y, Colla G, Venema JH (2010) Grafting as a tool to improve tolerance of vegetables to abiotic stresses: thermal stress, water stress and organic pollutants. Sci Hortic 127(2):162–171
Singh A, Agrawal PK (2016) Jatropha curcas, micro grafting modifies plant architecture and increases tolerance to abiotic stress: grafting modifies the architecture of Jatropha curcas. Plant Cell Tissue Organ Cult 128(1):1–4
Su-Cheng P, Yang CC, Riley JP (1990) Effects of acidity and molybdate concentration on the kinetics of the formation of the phosphoantimonylmolybdenum blue complex. Anal Chim Acta 229(1):115–120
Tauzin A, Giardina T (2014) Sucrose and invertases, a part of the plant defense response to the biotic stresses. Front Plant Sci 5(5):293
Thatcher SR, Danilevskay ON, Meng X, Beatty M, Zastrow-Hayes G, Harris C, Allen BV, Habben J, Li B (2016) Genome-wide analysis of alternative splicing during development and drought stress in maize. Plant physiol 170(1):586–599
Todaka D, Shinozaki K, Yamaguchi-Shinozaki K (2015) Recent advances in the dissection of drought-stress regulatory networks and strategies for development of drought-tolerant transgenic rice plants. Front Plant Sci 6:84
Venekamp JH, Lampe JEM, Koot JTMT (1989) Organic acids as sources for drought-induced proline synthesis in field bean plants, vicia faba l. J Plant Physiol 133(6):654–659
Wang G, Cai G, Kong F, Deng Y, Ma N, Meng Q (2014) Overexpression of tomato chloroplast-targeted dnaj protein enhances tolerance to drought stress and resistance to pseudomonas solanacearum in transgenic tobacco. Plant Physiol Biochem 82:95–104
Wang S, Zhuang K, Zhang S, Yang M, Kong F, Meng Q (2018a) Overexpression of a tomato carotenoid ε-hydroxylase gene (SlLUT1) improved the drought tolerance of transgenic tobacco. J Plant Physiol 222:103–112
Wang Y, Meng B, Zhong S, Wang D, Ma J, Sun W (2018b) Aboveground biomass and root/shoot ratio regulated drought susceptibility of ecosystem carbon exchange in a meadow steppe. Plant Soil 432:259
Xiong ZT, Li YH, Xu B (2002) Nutrition influence on copper accumulation by Brassica pekinensis Rupr. Ecotoxicol Environ Saf 53:200–205
Xu W, Cui K, Xu A, Nie L, Huang J, Peng S (2015) Drought stress condition increases root to shoot ratio via alteration of carbohydrate partitioning and enzymatic activity in rice seedlings. Acta Physiol Plant 37(2):1–11
Zhang ZH, Han M, Zhang Y, Wang Y, Liu CY, Cao BL, Xu K (2017) Effect of water stress on development and H2O and CO2 exchange in leaves of tomato grafted with different drought resistant rootstocks. Sci Agric Sin 50:391–398. (in Chinese)
Zhang ZH, Cao BL, Gao S, Xu K (2019a) Grafting improves tomato drought tolerance through enhancing photosynthetic capacity and reducing ROS accumulation. Protoplasma 256(4):1013–1024
Zhang ZH, Cao BL, Li N, Chen ZJ, Xu K (2019b) Comparative transcriptome analysis of the regulation of ABA signaling genes in different rootstock grafted tomato seedlings under drought stress. Environ Exp Bot 166:103814
Zhao SY, Wang GD, Zhao WY, Zhang S, Kong FY, Dong XC, Meng QW (2018) Overexpression of tomato WHIRLY protein enhances tolerance to drought stress and resistance to Pseudomonas solanacearum in transgenic tobacco. Biologia plantarum 62(1):55–68
Zou Q (1993) Experimental guide of plant physiology and biochemistry. Chinese Agricultural Press, Beijing, pp 26–33
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Double First-class Discipline Construction Project of Shandong Province (No. SYL2017YSTD06).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Zhang, Z., Liu, Y., Cao, B. et al. The effectiveness of grafting to improve drought tolerance in tomato. Plant Growth Regul 91, 157–167 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10725-020-00596-2
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10725-020-00596-2