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Plant Gene and Trait, 2013, Vol.4, No.4, 17
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18
leaves and growing fruit are among the first to be
affected. As soil begins to dry, stomata close and
leaves remain highly hydrated, probably through root
pressure. Productivity is affected because of the early
closure of stomata. Turner and Thomas (1998) who
showed measurements of leaf water potential using
either the exuding xylem or relative leaf water content
could not be reliably linked to plant functions such as
stomatal movement, net photosynthesis or leaf folding.
Understanding banana plant response to soil moisture
deficit and least reduction in total chlorophyll content,
soluble protein content with lesser reduction in yield
are of basic scientific interest and have potential
application bananas (
Musa
spp). With a view to elicit
information on these aspects, field and laboratory
investigations were undertaken.
2 Materials and methods
The experiment was carried out at at national research
centre for banana, Thiruchirapalli, during 2011~2012.
The experiment consists of two treatments as
considered as main plot and twelve cultivars and
hybrids as taken as sub plots were laid out in split plot
design with three replications. The main plots are, M1
(control) with the soil pressure maintained from -0.69
to -6.00 bar, M
2
(water deficit) with the Soil pressure
maintained from -0.69 to -14.00 bar. Soil pressure of
-14.00 bar was reached at 30 days and measured by
using soil moisture release curve and measured the
soil moisture by using the pressure plate membrane
apparatus.The sub plots are, S
1
: Karpuravalli (ABB),
S
2
: Karpuravalli × Pisang Jajee, S
3
: Saba (ABB), S
4
:
Sanna Chenkathali (AA), S
5
: Poovan (AAB), S
6
: Ney
poovan (AB), S
7
: Anaikomban (AA), S8: Matti ×
Cultivar Rose, S
9
: Matti (AA), S
10
: Pisang Jajee ×
Matti, S
11
: Matti × Anaikomban and S
12
: Anaikomban
× Pisang Jajee. The total chlorophyll content, soluble
protein content were recorded during 3
rd
, 5
th
, 7
th
, 9
th
month after planting and at harvest stages of the crop.
The yield was assessed at the time of harvesting. Total
chlorophyll content were estimated by the method of
Hixcox and Israelstam (1979) and expressed as mg/g
dry weight, soluble protein content were estimated in
physiologically active leaves as per the procedure of
Bradford (1974) and expressed as mg/g fresh weight.
3 Result and discussion
3.1 Total chlorophyll content (mg/g)
The data on total chlorophyll content reflected similar
time trend of chlorophyll ‘a’, chlorophyll ‘b’ (Table 1).
Main plot treatments differed significantly at all
growth stages. Among the main plot treatments, M1
out performed with higher total chlorophyll content of
1.03 mg/g than M
2
(0.90 mg/g) showing a 13 per cent
reduction over M1 at 7
th
MAP stage. With regard to
the sub-plot treatment S
1
recorded higher total
chlorophyll content of 1.31 mg/g closely followed by
S
2
(1.17 mg/g) and S
3
(1.08 mg/g). S
12
however,
recorded the lowest content of 0.72 mg/g among the
subplot treatments at 7
th
MAP stage. Significant
differences among the interaction treatments also
revealed the differential responses of M
1
and M
2
treatments over sub-plot treatments. Among them
M
1
S
1
registered higher total chlorophyll content of
1.35 mg/g over M
2
. Treatments such as M
1
S
2
and
M
1
S
3
also performed better than other treatments with
7 to 13 per cent increase over M
2
treatment interaction.
A considerable reduction in total chlorophyll content
could also be observed due to interaction with M
2
, the
percentage however, varies with different sub plots.
Among the sub plot treatments, M
2
S
1
, M
2
S
2
, M
2
S
3
and
M
2
S
4
exhibited 6 to 12 per cent reduction in total
chlorophyll content, whereas, all the other treatments
showed 13 to 17 per cent reduction over M
1
and
subplot interaction.
The chloroplast in green plants constitutes the photos-
ynthetic apparatus. Chlorophylls and other photosy-
nthetic pigments are found in the form of protein
pigment complexes mainly in thylakoid membranes of
grana. Photosynthetic pigments play major role in