Figure 1 | Scientific Reports

Figure 1

From: Impact of drought stress on simultaneously occurring pathogen infection in field-grown chickpea

Figure 1

The morpho-physiological response of plants subjected to combined drought and F. solani infection. Chickpea genotype JG 62 was used to study the impact of combined drought and pathogen stress compared to drought only, and pathogen (F. solani) only stresses. Five days old nursery grown chickpea plants were used for drought, pathogen, combined stress treatments, and control. Chickpea root was immersed in F. solani spore suspension (1.1 × 105 spores/ ml) for four hours to impose F. solani infection to pathogen only and combined stress treatments. For control and drought treatment, chickpea roots were dipped in sterile RO water for the same duration. Chickpea plants were re-planted into pots after four hours. Water withholding, to impose drought, was initiated five days after replanting into pots. Drought level (FC-35%) was achieved on 16th day after drought initiation and combined stress was counted from then. Disease symptoms at a morphological level were examined on fifth-day post combined stress treatment. Symptoms such as leaf yellowing (cyan arrow), root blackening, and root rot were observed in pathogen and combined stress treatment plants (A). Roots from control, drought, pathogen, and combined stress treatments were collected and observed under the 0.5 XPF objective of SZX16 Stereo Microscope (E). Scale bar represents 1 mm. Black root rot was evident in primary root (the distance between red arrows) of combined stress treatment. Additionally, pathogen treatment plants showed the emergence of lateral root (yellow arrow) and combined stress plants showed lack of lateral roots (white arrow). Leaf gas exchange parameters such as photosynthetic rate (B), stomatal conductance (C) and transpiration rate (D) were measured in the fourth leaf from the top in each treatment. Bar graph represents the average of three biological replicates ± SEM. Statistical significance was tested by two-way ANOVA followed by LSD All-Pairwise Comparisons post-hoc test. The different letters above each column represent significance difference between means at p < 0.05.

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