Abstract
Drought has become an increasing problem in agriculture in recent years with fresh water becoming a scarce resource. One of the solutions to potentially alleviate detrimental effects of drought is the use of commercial seaweed-based biostimulants. The aim was to better understand their effects. Tomato plants (Solanum lycopersicum L.) were grown in soil under drought stress conditions with a 40% reduction in irrigation compared to control plants in 2020, and a 67% reduction in 2021. Plant responses to (i) drought stress, and (ii) a combination of drought stress and application of four selected seaweed biostimulants were continuously measured with sap flow and stem diameter variation sensors and compared to well-watered plants in each year. No differences were observed in overall yield and fruit size between treatments, indicating a potential water saving of at least 40% as confirmed by the sap flow measurements. Although no differences were observed in yield, some of the tested biostimulants did impact plant functioning. The Ascophyllum nodosum-based biostimulant resulted in water uptake during drought comparable to well-watered control plants, whilst the Saccharina latissimi-based biostimulant resulted in significantly lower water uptake than stressed control plants but with comparable yield as well-watered plants, increasing plant water-use efficiency. Therefore the recommendation is to use plant sensors for future objective quantification of water use and growth effects of featured biostimulants, and as part of the experiments to unravel modes of action of different biostimulants in crops.
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank Pôle Légumes for organizing the trials with special thanks to Margaux Kerdraon and Matthieu Vanderriele for their on-site support. The authors also thank Philip Deman, Geert Favyts and Erik Moerman of the UGent Laboratory of Plant Ecology for their support with sensor installation and technical support. We further thank the entire Bio4safe consortium and Interreg 2 Seas in making this research possible. We also wish to thank the anonymous referees for their valuable comments on this manuscript.
Funding
The research was funded by the Bio4safe project which has received funding from the Interreg 2 Seas programme 2014–2020 co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund under subsidy contract No 2S03-029.
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All authors contributed to the study concept except ST. BV made the experimental design. Harvest data collection was performed under supervision of BV. Sensor data was collected and analysed by ST under supervision of KS. The first draft of the manuscript was written by ST under supervision of KS, and all authors provided feedback on the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Top, S., Vandoorne, B., Pauwels, E. et al. Plant Sensors Untangle the Water-Use and Growth Effects of Selected Seaweed-Derived Biostimulants on Drought-Stressed Tomato Plants (Solanum lycopersicum). J Plant Growth Regul 42, 5615–5627 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00344-023-10941-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00344-023-10941-0