1ST LECTURE: WATER USE EFFICIENCY and (2) water productivity, is the volume of water taken into a plant
oductivity, is the volume of water taken into a plant to produce
How do we use water?
1. Domestic residential, commercial, industrial, and public uses such
as street cleaning, fire fighting, municipal parks, and public swimming
pool (nearly 60% of the public supply is delivered to household.
2. Power plants 136B gallons of fresh water per day during the
production of energy from fossil fuels, nuclear, or geothermal sources;
used for cooling purposes
3. Agriculture irrigate farm crops, for livestock, dairies, feedlots, fish
farms, and other farm needs.
4. Industrial & Mining for cooling in factories and washing and rinsing
in manufacturing processes (e.g. steel, paper, and associated
products, chemical and associated products.
Riparian Rights emerge in the regions bordering bodies of water. Users are
entitled to use water adjoined to their land but not to divert water.
Prior Appropriation is a queuing system allowing diversion of water where
diversion rights are determined according to (1) first in time first in line and (2)
use it or lose it.
Water Trading Issues
1. Transferable rights
2. Sale by the government
3. In vs. Out of the basin
4. Sale of effective vs. applied water
5. Compesation to the third party
6. Active vs. Passive Trading
7. Options to buy/sell
8. Chile/California/Columbia
Water Use Efficiency
Water efficiency originates in the economic concept of productivity which
means the amount of any given resource that must be expanded to produce
one unit of any good or service. Higher water efficiency means lower the
resource input requirement per unit. Examples include (1) labour productivity,
in steel mill, is the amount of labour required to produce a ton of crude steel
a unit of output.
Taking both quality and quantity into account, water use efficiency means any
measure that reduces the amount of water used per unit of any given activity,
consistent with the maintenance or enhancement of water quality. It is also
closely related to, and in several cases overlaps other basic concepts of
current environmental resource management. Meaning, water use efficiency is
of central importance to conservation particularly to (1) economic and social
dimensions and (2) sustainable development.
Enhancing Field Water Conservation or WUE in Irrigated Agriculture
*Methods of Applying Water
1. Boarder Strip used on gentle slopes, percolation losses at inflow,
20-45% runoff losses.
2. Basin highly efficient but not suitable for highly permeable soils or
soils of very low permeability, and crops should be flood tolerant.
3. Furrow similar problem as with the boarder strip irrigation plus
greater erosion and nutrient discharge and also not water efficient.
4. Sprinkler systems typically more uniform application and greater
irrigation efficiency, but more expensive. It includes soil set, hand
lines, wheel lines, centre pivots, and guns. May use high of low
pressure application and variable application rates depending on
nozzle size. Problems of plant disease and water quality (clogging
nozzles, salt burn on leaf tissue).
5. Drip (tricle, micro, sub) irrigation high installation and maintenance
costs but very efficient. Works well onn variable land forms and
topography but limited for use on forage or complete cover crops.
Increasing Field WUE
1. Increase harvest index (HI)
2. Reduce the transpiration ratio (T/DM)
3. Maximize dry matter (DM)
4. Increase T relative to other water balance components (reduce
evaporation E, deep percolation D, reduce quantity Q applied, and
increase soil water depletion (SWD).
Increase Plant WUE
1. Increase adaption to water deficit
2. Raise ratio of photosynthesis/transpiration
3. Select high WUE varieties
4. Adjust cropping system
How does Water Efficiency help address Climate Change?
If one out of every 100 homes retrofitted with water-efficient fixtures, there will
be saving up to -100M kWhof electricity per year, avoiding 80K tons of
greenhouse gas emissions. This is equivalent to removing nearly 15K
automobiles from the road for one year.
If 1% of homes replaced their older, inefficient toilets with low-flow models,
there will be saving of more than 38M kWh of electricity enough to supply
more than 44K households electricity for one month.
2ND LECTURE: STRESS PHYSIOLOGY
What is Stress Physiology?
In Physics, it is any force applied to an object. In biology, it is any change in
the environmental conditions that might reduce or adversely change a plants
growth or development. There are two damages that stress may cause to
plants: (1) primary damage, which could either be direct leading to the injury to
the plasma-lemma or indirect leading to the dysfunction of metabolism and (2)
secondary damage e.g. water stress in salt stress.
Resistance is plants fitness to the unfavourable environment.
1. Acclimation is plants resistance which increases as a result of
exposure to prior stress.
2. Adaptation is genetically determined level of plants resistance
acquired over generation by selection.
Strain is the magnitude of physiological change that occurs in pant in
response to environmental stress.
1. Avoidance is the severe reduction in metabolism during stress,
and plants often enter into a dormant state.
2. Tolerance is the maintenance of high metabolic activity similar to
that attained under optimum conditions.
What are the plant stressors and its effects?
A. Water deficit/drought causes decreased leaf area, stomatal
closure due to increased ABA, enhancement of root extension,
osmotic adjustment through synthesis of compatible solutes like
proline, sorbitol, and glycine betaine and induction of CAM.
Resurrection plant: Selaginella lepidophylla
Drought Tolerators
1. Evergreen shrubs true xerophytes e.g. Creosote bush
2. Jojoba can alter leaf size and color (pubescence) and leaf angle
can respond to diurnal changes in sun angle.
3. Members of Cactaceae CAM plants, stem succulent with
areoles, multi-lobed stigma, many stamens.
Drought Avoiders
1. Drought deciduous shrubs leaves are not drought tolerant, high
maximum photosynthetic rates (limited photosynthetic period),
many have carbohydrate storage for rapid manufacture of new
leaves when conditions become favourable.
2. Ephemerals grow only when water is available, life span is very
short (6-8 weeks), rapid photosynthetic and growth rates, cooled
via transpiration (cant tolerate drought).
3. Phreatophytes deep root systems tap into water stable, seeds
required scarification for germination, regeneration niche is
critical, e.g. cottonwoods, willows, and some leguminous subtrees
like mesquite. (velvet mesquite Prosopis sp., deep roots (to
160ft), small leaves, winter deciduous).
B. Heat stress/heat shock usually occurs at temperature > 45C for
tissues, >120C for seeds and > 70C for pollen, and impairs thermal
stability of the membrane and proteins.
 Adaption mechanisms include (1) induction of heart shock proteins
(HSPs) and (2) some leaf adaptations against excessive heating like
reflective hairs, leaf rolling, and small leaves.
C. Salinity/salt stress involves osmotic effect, specific ion effect and
nutrient imbalance
Adaption mechanisms include (1) exclusion of ions (2)
compartmentalization of ions in vacuoles (3) induction of
osmoregulatory compounds such as proline, gylcine betaine, and
polyols
Salt Functional Types
Glycophytes plants whose growth is decreased when exposed to
salinity level > 10mM
Halophytes plants that tolerate higher salinity than glycophytes (up
to 50 mM) before a reduction on growth occurs. Some think that CAM
evolved first in response to salinity.
Halophytes Adaption mechanism include osmoregulation by organic
acids and soluble carbohydrates create a high soluble concentration
in their cells.
D. Oxygen deficit observed in flooded or waterlogged soils
Adaptation mechanisms include (1) induction of anaerobic stress
proteins (2) specialised structures for acquiring oxygen such as
aerenchyma and pneumatophores.
E. Polluting gasses e.g. SO2, NO, NO2, CO, CO2, CFCs, C2H4 which
cause stomatal closure
Adaptation mechanism includes (1) detoxification using sulfite and
bisulfite which metabolize sulphate and toxic oxygen is detoxified by
antioxidants like glutathione, tocopherol, ascorbate, superoxide
dismutase, catalase, and peroxidise.
F. Heavy metals stress usually associated with acidic soils
Adaptation mechanisms include (1)
sequestration/compartmentalization in cell wall, cytoplasm and
vacuole and (2) induction of metal-binding ligands (chelating proteins)
= cysteine-rich, heavy metal-binding protein molecules like
phytochelatins (PCs), enzymatically synthesized peptides and
metallothioneins (MTs), gene-encoded polypeptides.
Glutathione is a very powerful antioxidant that protects the body by
targeting and destroying reactive oxygen molecules and free radicals.
It binds to the heavy metals such as mercury and lead, as well as
chemical pollutants and transforms them into a form that can be easily
flushed out of the body via enzymatic pathways.
3rd LECTURE: PHOTOINHIBITION
What is Photoinhibition? What are the two types of Photoinhibition?
Photoinhibton is the inhibition of plants photosystems that decreases its
quantum efficiency due to (1) excessive light/radiance (2) stressed conditions
like extreme temperatures which causes water stress leading to the inhibition
of carbon metabolism in plants.
There are two types of photoinhibition: (1) dynamic (or protective)
photoinhibition (under moderate excess light and (2) chronic photoinhibition
(under high levels of excess light)
Dynamic Photoinhibition is a type of photoinhibition that can return to its
initial higher value when proton flux decreases below saturation level while the
maximum photosynthetic rate remains unchanged. It is also the diversion of
absorbed light energy toward heat dissipation leading to decreased quantum
efficiency.
Chronic Photoinhibition is a type of photoinhibition that has lost-lasting
effect to plants which is persisting for weeks or months. It represents an
overload or failure of protective mechanisms that damages the photosynthetic
system and decreases both quantum efficiency and maximum photosynthetic
rate. It is also associated with the damage and replacement of the D1 protein
from the reaction center of Photosystem II.
Why excess light leads to photoinhibition?
(1) Because the balance between ATP/NADPH synthesis in
photosynthesis and their utilization in the CO 2 fixing system is affected
as light captured is faster than the Calvin cycle can be used up the
ATP and NADPH producing light stress. Light energy is in excess of
that used by photosynthesis. Excessive energy loading on light
harvesting apparatus results to high rates of electron transport.
(2) Because of the production of active oxygen species the causes
damage due to the formation of AOS which is formed because excited
pigments donate energy to O2 producing single oxygen. Moreover,
singlet oxygen formation at photosystem OO damages lipids,
bleaches chlorophyll, and destroys purines and polyunsaturated fatty
acids.
(3) Sites of damage is on (1) Photosystem II core (2) Photosystem I
because O2 can be converted to regenerate superoxide (O 2-).
Superoxide can be converted to H2O2 enzymatically.
What are the hormones and its effects to plants?
1. ABA (Abscisic Acid) controls stomatal aperture under drought stress
and increases in the leaves as water is deficit which is can be
released from its bound forms, increases rate of synthesis, decreases
rate of destruction, and decrease rate of movement out of tissue. At
low water potential, when exogenous ABA is high, it promotes root
growth and reduces shoot growth. Exogenous application of ABA to
roots stimulates water flow and ion flux.
2. Cytokinins transmission of stress signal (water, osmotic) from
shoots to roots inhibits synthesis of CK in roots. Exogenous
application can prevent senescence and control of stomatal aperture
and leaf water potential.
3. Ethylene water stress increases synthesis of C=C through increased
synthesis of ACC (aminocyclopropane carboxylase). Increased C=C
production under water deficit could be an indirect effect increased of
ANA in tissues. Older leaves (which have higher ABA) respond more
readily to increase in C=C than younger leaves. C=C may not cause
an increase of ANA because increase occurs immediately after
application and at a faster rate than the increase in concentration of
C=C. Increased C=C under water deficit may affect translocation of
IAA. Water logging also induces C=C synthesis in shoots.
4. IAA (Indole Acetic Acid) concentration and polar translocation are
reduced under water deficit linked to loss of polar transport in pea
stems. Reduced concentration due to increased IAA oxidase levels
(observed in tomatoes when subjected to water potential from -0.2 to
-1.5 MPa. Exogenous application of IAA can overcome drought-
induced growth inhibition of wheat during head formation, flowering or
milk stage of lower development.
5. GA (Gibberilin) water deficit decreases GA concentration (e.g. in
lettuce leaves). Water logging reduces synthesis of GA in roots which
is reflected in amount translocated in shoots (measured in xylem sap
of tomato). If GA applied in apical bud (e.g. tomato) within 7 days after
flooding, inhibitory effects are overcome.