查看文章

Drought occurring at the reproductive stage is the most critical phase affecting cowpea production. It remains unclear whether drought priming at the early growth stage can be employed to alleviate drought stress during the post-anthesis drought period and improve water productivity (WP) in cowpea. Therefore, the physiological responses and WP as affected by drought priming were investigated. Two cowpea varieties (tolerant (V1) and sensitive (V2) to drought stress) were submitted to drought priming followed by water recovery and then subjected to subsequent drought stresses (80%, 60% and 40% of soil water holding capacity (SWHC)). The results showed that cowpea pre-exposed to drought priming acquired a stress imprint that alleviated the subsequent drought stress which occurred during the later growth stage as exemplified by the improvement of water status, photosynthesis, water productivity of …