Growth, biomass partitioning and chlorophyll fluorescence response to drought stress: a comparative study of commelina communis l. biotypes

Plants continuously adjust to their surroundings to organize the growth and photosynthesis activity in response to environmental fluctuations. The growth and photosynthesis response is mostly achieved by linking multiple environmental signals. Drought stress is one of the environmental setbacks which negatively affects growth and physiological processes of plants. In this study drought stress was applied to C. communis biotypes to provide the basic information and to detect the efficiency of photosystem II. Three different biotypes of C. communis (JL-1-1, LN-8 and HB-9-1) were used and compared each other in this study. These biotypes were treated with 100% field capacity (control) and 60% field capacity followed by 10 days drought stress condition. Under drought stress, plant growth, biomass partitioning and chlorophyll fluorescence were significantly decreased in all three biotypes as compared to control. In conclusion C. communis biotypes JL-1-1 under drought stress showed a healthy status having a superior photosynthetic capacity than LN-8 and HB-9-1. This study revealed the survival and competitiveness mechanism of C. communis biotypes under drought stress conditions and may serve as a theoretical basis to protect C. communis populations.