Special Issue "Drought Stress in Horticultural Plants"

A special issue of Horticulturae (ISSN 2311-7524). This special issue belongs to the section "Biotic and Abiotic Stress".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 November 2021.

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Stefania Toscano
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Agriculture, Food and Environment, University of Catania, Via Valdisavoia, 5 - 95123 Catania, Italy
Interests: ornamental plants; abiotic stresses; antioxidant enzymes; biodiversity; product quality; germination; light response
Special Issues and Collections in MDPI journals
Dr. Giulia Franzoni
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, University of Milan, via Celoria 2, 20133 Milano, Italy
Interests: plant physiology; abiotic stresses; fruit quality; postharvest physiology; vegetable production; biostimulant; sustainable agriculture
Dr. Sara Álvarez
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Horticultural and Woody Crops, Instituto Tecnológico Agrario de Castilla y León (ITACYL), Crta Burgos Km 119, CP 47071 Valladolid, Spain
Interests: deficit irrigation; plant physiology; ornamental plants; stress physiology; evapotranspiration; salinity; water relations; tree nut crops; intrinsic water use efficiency
Special Issues and Collections in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Drought stress is one of the main factors limiting horticultural crops, especially in environments like the Mediterranean basin, which is often characterized by sub-optimal water availability. The global change will determine the increase of semi-arid conditions, so all horticultural crops will have to cope with the water scarcity. Appropriate plant selection and new cultivation methods, especially methods of deficit irrigation, are crucial in improving the crop cultivation performances.

Horticultural plants can have specific adaptive mechanisms to overcome the negative effects of drought stress. Drought-tolerant plants show different adjustment mechanisms to overcome this stress, including morphological, physiological, and biochemical modifications. The plant responses include increasing the root/shoot ratio, growth reduction, leaf anatomy change, reduction of leaf size, and reduction of total leaf area to limit the water loss and guarantee the photosynthesis process. Furthermore, drought stress influences gas exchange and other physiological parameters. Recent acquisitions on the mechanism of signal transduction and the development of drought tolerance in plants are useful to understand the action mechanisms.

In this context, this Special Issue aims to collect original and quantitative studies focusing on the effects of drought stress on horticultural plants. Studies conducted on different crops in open fields or in controlled environments are welcome. Particular attention will be paid to the analysis of the response mechanisms to drought stress.

Dr. Stefania Toscano
Dr. Giulia Franzoni
Dr. Sara Álvarez
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Horticulturae is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • drought
  • plant physiology
  • adaptive mechanism
  • water use efficiency
  • oxidative stress
  • signal transduction

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

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Article
Estimation of Water Stress in Potato Plants Using Hyperspectral Imagery and Machine Learning Algorithms
Horticulturae 2021, 7(7), 176; https://doi.org/10.3390/horticulturae7070176 - 02 Jul 2021
Viewed by 398
Abstract
This work presents quantitative detection of water stress and estimation of the water stress level: none, light, moderate, and severe on potato crops. We use hyperspectral imagery and state of the art machine learning algorithms: random decision forest, multilayer perceptron, convolutional neural networks, [...] Read more.
This work presents quantitative detection of water stress and estimation of the water stress level: none, light, moderate, and severe on potato crops. We use hyperspectral imagery and state of the art machine learning algorithms: random decision forest, multilayer perceptron, convolutional neural networks, support vector machines, extreme gradient boost, and AdaBoost. The detection and estimation of water stress in potato crops is carried out on two different phenological stages of the plants: tubers differentiation and maximum tuberization. The machine learning algorithms are trained with a small subset of each hyperspectral image corresponding to the plant canopy. The results are improved using majority voting to classify all the canopy pixels in the hyperspectral images. The results indicate that both detection of water stress and estimation of the level of water stress can be obtained with good accuracy, improved further by majority voting. The importance of each band of the hyperspectral images in the classification of the images is assessed by random forest and extreme gradient boost, which are the machine learning algorithms that perform best overall on both phenological stages and detection and estimation of water stress in potato crops. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Drought Stress in Horticultural Plants)
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Article
Cowpea Ecophysiological Responses to Accumulated Water Deficiency during the Reproductive Phase in Northeastern Pará, Brazil
Horticulturae 2021, 7(5), 116; https://doi.org/10.3390/horticulturae7050116 - 18 May 2021
Viewed by 403
Abstract
Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp.) is a leguminous species widely cultivated in northern and northeastern Brazil. In the state of Pará, this crop still has low productivity due to several factors, such as low soil fertility and climatic adversity, especially the water [...] Read more.
Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp.) is a leguminous species widely cultivated in northern and northeastern Brazil. In the state of Pará, this crop still has low productivity due to several factors, such as low soil fertility and climatic adversity, especially the water deficiency. Therefore, the present study aimed at evaluating the physiological parameters and the productivity of cowpea plants under different water depths. The experiment was conducted in Castanhal/Pará between 2015 and 2016. A randomized block design was applied with six replications and four treatments, represented by the replacement of 100%, 50%, 25% and 0% of the water lost during crop evapotranspiration (ETc), starting from the reproductive stage. The rates of net photosynthesis (A), stomatal conductance (gs), leaf transpiration (Eleaf), substomatal CO2 concentration (Ci), leaf temperature (Tleaf) and leaf water potential (Ψw) were determined in four measurements at the R5, R7, R8 and R9 phenological stages. Cowpea was sensitive to the water availability in the soil, showing a significant difference between treatments for physiological variables and productivity. Upon reaching a Ψw equal to −0.88 MPa, the studied variables showed important changes, which allows establishing this value as a threshold for the crop regarding water stress under such experimental conditions. The different water levels in the soil directly influenced productivity for both years, indicating that the proper water supply leads to better crop growth and development, increasing productivity. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Drought Stress in Horticultural Plants)
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Review

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Review
Biochemical, Physiological, and Molecular Aspects of Ornamental Plants Adaptation to Deficit Irrigation
Horticulturae 2021, 7(5), 107; https://doi.org/10.3390/horticulturae7050107 - 10 May 2021
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 523
Abstract
There is increasing concern regarding global warming and its severe impact on the farming sector and food security. Incidences of extreme weather conditions are becoming more and more frequent, posing plants to stressful conditions, such as flooding, drought, heat, or frost etc. Especially [...] Read more.
There is increasing concern regarding global warming and its severe impact on the farming sector and food security. Incidences of extreme weather conditions are becoming more and more frequent, posing plants to stressful conditions, such as flooding, drought, heat, or frost etc. Especially for arid lands, there is a tug-of-war between keeping high crop yields and increasing water use efficiency of limited water resources. This difficult task can be achieved through the selection of tolerant water stress species or by increasing the tolerance of sensitive species. In this scenario, it is important to understand the response of plants to water stress. So far, the response of staple foods and vegetable crops to deficit irrigation is well studied. However, there is lack of literature regarding the responses of ornamental plants to water stress conditions. Considering the importance of this ever-growing sector for the agricultural sector, this review aims to reveal the defense mechanisms and the involved morpho-physiological, biochemical, and molecular changes in ornamental plant’s responses to deficit irrigation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Drought Stress in Horticultural Plants)
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Review
Response Mechanism of Plants to Drought Stress
Horticulturae 2021, 7(3), 50; https://doi.org/10.3390/horticulturae7030050 - 13 Mar 2021
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 909
Abstract
With the global climate anomalies and the destruction of ecological balance, the water shortage has become a serious ecological problem facing all mankind, and drought has become a key factor restricting the development of agricultural production. Therefore, it is essential to study the [...] Read more.
With the global climate anomalies and the destruction of ecological balance, the water shortage has become a serious ecological problem facing all mankind, and drought has become a key factor restricting the development of agricultural production. Therefore, it is essential to study the drought tolerance of crops. Based on previous studies, we reviewed the effects of drought stress on plant morphology and physiology, including the changes of external morphology and internal structure of root, stem, and leaf, the effects of drought stress on osmotic regulation substances, drought-induced proteins, and active oxygen metabolism of plants. In this paper, the main drought stress signals and signal transduction pathways in plants are described, and the functional genes and regulatory genes related to drought stress are listed, respectively. We summarize the above aspects to provide valuable background knowledge and theoretical basis for future agriculture, forestry breeding, and cultivation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Drought Stress in Horticultural Plants)
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