Drought Tolerance in Several Tagetes L. Cultivars

摘要

Drought is the most important single environmental stress factor that reduces crop yields worldwide. In the context of global climate change, selection and/or development of drought-resistant varieties of cultivated plants is becoming an urgent need for agriculture in arid and semiarid regions. In this work we have analysed physiological (growth inhibition) and biochemical (proline levels) responses to water stress of 5 cultivars of Tagetes patula and 5 cultivars of T. tenuifolia . The most drought-tolerant cultivars were found to be 'Bolero' in T. patula and 'Luna gold' in T. tenuifolia , while 'Orion' and 'Luna orange' were the most sensitive for each species.