Cultivation Using Coir Substrate and P or K Enriched Fertilizer Provides Higher Resistance to Drought in Ecologically Diverse Quercus Species

• Published in: Plants (Basel) Vol. 12; no. 3; p. 525
• Main Authors: Mariotti, Barbara, Martini, Sofia, Raddi, Sabrina, Ugolini, Francesca, Oliet, Juan A, Jacobs, Douglass F, Maltoni, Alberto
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 23-01-2023; MDPI
• Subjects: Accumulation; Chlorophyll; Climate change; Coir; Cultivation; Drought; Drought resistance; Enrichment; Environmental restoration; Enzymes; Fertilization; Forests; growing media; height growth; Leaves; Mediterranean environments; Mineral reserves; Mortality; Peat; physiological traits; Physiology; Plant growth; Quercus; Quercus ilex; Quercus robur; Reforestation; seedling survival; Seedlings; Stress analysis; Substrates; Survival; Sustainable materials; Water potential; Water resistance; Water stress; Quercus robur; Quercus pubescens; fertilization; height growth; water stress; growing media; physiological traits; morphological traits; seedling survival; Quercus ilex
• ISSN: 2223-7747; 2223-7747
• DOI: 10.3390/plants12030525

Nursery cultivation practices can be modified to increase resistance to water stress in forest seedlings following field establishment, which may be increasingly important under climate change. We evaluated the morphological (survival, growth) and physiological (chlorophyll fluorescence, leaf water potential) responses to water stress for three ecologically diverse
species (
,
, and
) with varying traits resulting from the combination of growing media (peat, coir) and fertilization (standard, P-enriched, K-enriched). For all species under water stress, seedlings grown in coir had generally higher growth than those grown in peat. Seedlings fertilized with P performed better, particularly for survival; conversely, K fertilization resulted in inconsistent findings. Such results could be explained by a combination of factors. P fertilization resulted in higher P accumulation in seedlings, while no K accumulation was observed in K fertilized seedlings. As expected, the more drought-sensitive species,
, showed the worst response, while
had a drought resistance equal or better to
despite being classified as intermediate in drought resistance in Mediterranean environments.