321-6 Understanding Whole-Plant Physiological Mechanisms of Potato Related to Zebra Chip Disease.



Wednesday, October 19, 2011: 9:35 AM
Henry Gonzalez Convention Center, Room 206A, Concourse Level

ABSTRACT WITHDRAWN

This project was focused on identifying, characterizing, and quantifying the physiological responses to Zebra Chip (ZC) disease and Liberibacter infection.  This was accomplished by testing the potato variety FL 1867 in a cropping system utilizing strip and conventional tillage with three irrigation levels: full irrigation, 70% deficit irrigation, and a 70% primed acclimation treatment involving 70% application rates until flowering and full irrigation for the remainder of the season.  Plants within the conventional tillage and two of the irrigation treatments (70% and 100%) were purposely infested with “hot” psyllids containing Liberibacter at two stages: full emergence and at bloom.  These treated plants were then measured for physiological function including gas exchange, chlorophyll fluorescence, SPAD chlorophyll reading, infrared canopy temperature, and sap flow.  Directly after physiological measurement, plants were collected and divided into four tissue types: root, stem base, leaf base, and first fully expanded leaf and measured with qPCR to quantify ZC infection titre.  Infection was significantly different among infection periods and seemed to be related to the amount of water stress the plants experienced.  Evidence was found for the movement of the infection from the root crown up the stem, with concomitant decreases in physiological function as the infection progressed.  Several of the physiological measurements may serve as detection methods for the progression of ZC in potato.
See more from this Division: C02 Crop Physiology and Metabolism
See more from this Session: Biotic x Abiotic Stress, Progress on Problems and Solutions From Crop Physiology