Drought resistance in L. pennellii.

A screening for drought resistance was carried out with 4 accessions of L. pennellii in comparison to cm. 'Floradel" (L. esculentum) as a control. The experiment was conducted in a plastic house. A completely randomized design, with four replicates and factorial arrangement, was employed, in which the factors were: accessions an irrigation frequencies, i.e. twice a week, one a week, every week and a half, and every other week. Each of the experimental units were integrated by one plant in a plastic pot of 18 x 15.5 cm.

There were no differences for fruit set within the L. pennellii accessions for the different irrigation frequencies, in comparison to cv. 'Floradel', which exhibited no fruit set when the plants were irrigated every other week (Table 1). No fruit-weight reduction was found within L. pennellii accessions for the different treatment, in comparison with 'Floradel', in which reduction was evident between irrigation frequencies (Table 2). The obtained results point out that in the different L. pennellii, evaluated accessions, there are drought resistance in comparison to L. esculentum.

Table 1. Fruit Set (%) obtained with L. pennellii accessions with different irrigation frequencies in comparison to cv. 'Floradel' (L. esculentum).

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                            Fruit Set (%)
Accession               Irrigation Frequency
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             Twice a   Once a   Every one and   Every other
              week      week     a half weeks     week
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LA 1911       90.5 a     78.2 a     43.6 a        64.9 a
LA 1942       66.4 a     84.3 a     93.7 a        60.8 a
LA 1732       38.3 a     68.8 a     86.0 a        61.0 a
LA 716        46.7 a     70.1 a     75.7 a        57.0 a
Floradel      18.2 a     23.8 a     14.5 a         0.0 b
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                             Fruit weight (gm)
Accession                 Irrigation Frequency
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             Twice a     Once a  Every one and  Every other
               week       week    a half weeks   week
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LA 1911       0.7 a       1.0 a       1.0 a       1.2 a
LA 1942       1.5 a       1.4 a       1.3 a       1.2 a
LA 1732       1.2 a       1.6 a       0.7 a       1.0 a
LA 716        1.3 a       1.9 a       0.8 a       0.7 a
Floradel      86.5 a      40.1 b      24.0 c      1.0 d
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