Sugarcane genotype response in leaf traits to flooding condition in early growth stage

Abstract

Flooding has become one of a serious problem for sugarcane production in Thailand because sugarcane production has dramatically increased in lowland. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of flooding in early growth stage of sugarcane on leaf traits. The response of sugarcane genotypes to flooding, and the relationships between leaf traits and flooding tolerance of sugarcane were evaluated in this study. A 5 × 2 factorial in completely randomized design (CRD) with three replications was used. Five sugarcane genotypes were evaluated for a comparison between control and flooding conditions in early growth stage. Data were collected on leaf traits, pigment content in leaf and total dry weight. Flooding condition reduced leaf dry weight, number of leaf, leaf area, leaf size, leaf moisture content and specific leaf area but increased pigment content. The genotype variation was found in all traits of this study. There was different response of sugarcane genotype to flooding conditions for leaf traits.  Moreover, there were differences among genotypes for flooding tolerance. The correlation coefficients between tolerant index for total dry weight and tolerant index for leaf dry weight (r = 0.88**), leaf area (r = 0.83**) and leaf size (r = 0.94**) were highly positive and significant .These findings suggest that leaf parameters are strongly linked with flooding tolerance in sugarcane.