Title : Physiology changes induced by priming in Miscanthus x giganteus
Abstract:
During last couple of years, traditionally mild climate of central Europe displays more and more extremes in temperature and amount of rainfalls. Springs changed to very hot and dry, with severe temperature changes within couple of days. Local plants and crops need to deal with this stressful situation causing yield decrease. Our major aim was to explore simple ways of „hardening“ to help Miscanthus x giganteus deal with climate changes more easily and improve its productivity as biomass crop in the same time. Plant priming has been discussed as cheap and simple tool to improvement of plant qualities. Certain doses of vitamins, metals as priming compounds, as well as different initial cultivation conditions (cold, hot, dark, ...) were applied to study changes in plant physiology using non-invasive methods of measurement of leaf fluorescence and reflectance. After short priming period, all plants studied were cultivated in greenhouse under conditions mimicking latest trend of climate.
We used 4 physical treatments (hot, cold, dry, dark) and 4 chemical treatments (copper, nitrogen, vitamin B and vitamin C) and non-treated plants as control. All treatments had big influence on photosynthetic processes and also influenced production of photosynthetic pigments. Our results show that application of certain physical and chemical primers to young Miscanthus x giganteus can result in substantial physiological changes, mainly in respect to effectivity of photosynthesis and change in cell wall composition. Altered synthesis of cell wall components is one of possible ways, how the plant can cope with stress-by reinforcement of cell wall. Increased synthesis of lignin accompanied several priming treatments hand in hand with prolonged vegetation season and increased biomass production.
