OpenLB
Open Library of Bioscience

Under the climatic and ecological conditions of Xingjiang, Northwest China, different degrees of drought stress were installed during the growth stages of cotton, and the drip irrigation with mulch was adopted, aimed to study the effects of drought stress and re-watering on the endogenous hormones (abscisic acid, ABA; and zeatins, ZRs) contents of cotton roots and leaves and the stomatal conductance (gs) of cotton leaves. With the increase of drought stress at different growth stages, the ABA contents of cotton roots and leaves increased, while the ZRs contents of cotton roots and leaves and the gsand photosynthetic rate (Pn) of cotton leaves decreased, with greater decrements in the treatment of soil moisture content being 40% -45% of field capacity at early flowering-full flowering stage. After re-watering, the ABA contents of cotton roots and leaves d:d not have a decrease with the improvement of soil moisture regime, while the ZRs contents of cotton roots recovered rapidly or exceeded the control after 1-3 days of re-watering. There was a positive correlation between the ZRs contents of cotton roots and the gs of cotton leaves. In the treatment of soil moisture content being 50% -55% of field capacity at full budding-early flowering stage, the ZRs contents and gs of cotton leaves recovered more quickly and with greater increments. It was suggested that the higher ZRs contents of cotton roots after re-watering could be the main cause for the higher stomatal conductance and photosynthetic rate of cotton leaves.