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USDA-ARS, Crop Genetics and Production Research Unit, P.O. Box 345, Stoneville, MS 38776
* Corresponding author (bpettigrew{at}ars.usda.gov)
| ABSTRACT |
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Abbreviations: DAP, days after planting DPA, days post anthesis SLW, specific leaf weight
| INTRODUCTION |
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A number of environmental factors have been identified that affect fiber quality. The optimal night temperature for development of fiber length was determined to be 15 to 21°C, with shorter fibers developing in growth temperatures outside of that range (Gipson and Joham, 1968, 1969). Micronaire was also reduced when night temperatures were lower than 25°C (Gipson and Joham, 1968). Moisture deficits have been reported to reduce fiber lengths (Bennett et al., 1967; Eaton and Ergle, 1952, 1954; Marani and Amirav, 1971), but the moisture stress needs to be severe and occur shortly after flowering for there to be a significant reduction of the fiber length (Marani and Amirav, 1971). Drought stress can also reduce fiber micronaire (Eaton and Ergle, 1952; Marani and Amirav, 1971), but this effect is probably due to reductions in the photosynthetic capacity of the canopy. This hypothesis is further supported by evidence from shading studies where a 30% shade treatment reduced the micronaire (Pettigrew, 1995, 1996) and a 70% shade treatment reduced fiber maturity, a component of micronaire (Eaton and Ergle, 1954). Fiber micronaire has also been shown to be correlated with leaf photosynthetic rates (Pettigrew and Meredith, 1994). Lower light conditions also impacted fiber strength. Both Eaton and Ergle (1954) and Pettigrew (1995) demonstrated that reduced sunlight conditions resulted in weaker fiber than that produced in normal sunlight.
A great deal of information describing the time course of cotton fiber development and its underlying physiological and biochemical processes has been accumulated. Much of this information has been summarized in the review by DeLanghe (1986). The mechanisms by which the environment interacts with these processes to influence fiber quality are not straightforward. Sucrose produced in the photosynthetic tissue is translocated to the developing cotton fruit through pholem tissue and the funiculus (van Iersel et al., 1995). While much of the sucrose is imported into the fiber via symplastic pathways (Ryser, 1992), there can also be some apoplastic transfer (Buchala, 1987). Once inside the fiber cell, sucrose is cleaved by either invertase or sucrose synthase into glucose and fructose which, after further metabolism, are used for production of cellulose (the primary component of the fiber wall) or other cellular components (Basra et al., 1990). Changes in glucose, fructose, and sucrose concentrations during fiber development have been documented by both Jaquet et al. (1982) and Basra et al. (1990). In general, glucose and fructose concentrations increased during early development and reached a maximum during early fiber secondary wall formation. The sucrose trend was inconsistent between the two studies.
While the changes in levels of glucose, fructose, and sucrose during fiber development are documented, it is not known whether these transient individual sugar levels differ among cotton genotypes of varying fiber properties. In addition, manipulations of plant source-to-sink ratios that might alter these fiber transient sugar levels have not been addressed. The primary objective of this research was to determine how the fiber starch, glucose, fructose, and sucrose levels at various stages of fiber development were altered by different light regimes that were previously shown to alter distinct fiber quality properties in cotton genotypes differing in fiber quality. A secondary objective was to trace how the aforementioned treatments affected the carbohydrate levels in the subtending leaves and ovules of the developing fiber.
| MATERIALS AND METHODS |
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The experimental design was a randomized complete block with five replicates and a factorial arrangement of genotypes and treatments. A new randomization plan was applied each year. Two levels of sunlight comprised the treatments. The first sunlight treatment was the control, incident sunlight level. The second sunlight treatment was 70% of incident sunlight produced by covering the plants with 30% shade cloth as described in detail previously (Pettigrew, 1995). The shade cloth treatment was imposed at 67, 67, and 62 d after planting (DAP) in 1995, 1996, and 1997, respectively, and continued until harvest.
Approximately 1 wk after installation of the shade treatments, sympodial branch first position white blooms (blooms at anthesis) in plots of all the treatments were tagged with jewelers tags. Tagging white blooms for all treatments on the same day, no more than 1 wk after imposition of the shade treatment, insured that the tagged blooms were of equivalent metabolic and developmental ages for each plot. These tagged fruit and their subtending leaves were harvested at 0, 14, 21, or 35 d post anthesis (DPA). At each harvest, four tagged fruit and subtending leaves were collected per plot at approximately 0900 CDT and stored on ice for transport to the lab. Once at the lab, the fruit samples were immediately separated into their fiber and ovule fractions and the area of the subtending leaves measured. At 0 DPA, there was no discernable fiber fraction to separate. The fiber, ovule, and leaf samples for each plot and each harvest were then frozen and stored at -80°C, lyophilized, ground in liquid nitrogen, and stored at -20°C until subsequent analyses for starch and soluble carbohydrates. The time from sample collection in the field to freezing at -80°C was completed within 1.5 h. Prior to grinding, the dry weights of the lyophilized leaf samples were determined. Dry weights and areas of the subtending leaves were used for calculating specific leaf weights (SLW).
Soluble carbohydrates were extracted from 100 mg of each tissue sample with three successive 12-mL washes of boiling 800 mL L-1 ethanol, followed by incubation in a 60°C water bath, and centrifugation at 9400 x g for 10 min. The pellet from these centrifugations was saved for starch analyses, and the three supernatants were pooled and evaporated to dryness with a Zymark TurboVap LV evaporator (Zymark Corp., Hopkinton, MA)1. The dried supernatant residue was resuspended in 10 mL of 800 mL L-1 ethanol for 15 min in a 60°C water bath. Glucose, fructose, and sucrose were assayed on the resuspended supernatant according to the methods previously described by Hendrix (1993). Starch in the pellets remaining from the hot ethanol extraction of the plant tissue was quantified following digestion with amyloglucosidase for 100 min at 55°C according to procedures described by Hendrix (1993) and Heitholt and Schmidt (1994).
At the end of the season, the remaining tagged bolls in each plot were harvested soon after the bolls had opened. The bolls from each plot were ginned separately. After ginning, the lint was sent to Starlab (Knoxville, TN) for determination of fiber bundle strength, elongation, span lengths, micronaire, fiber maturity, and perimeter.
Statistical analyses were performed by analysis of variance (PROC MIXED, SAS Institute, 1996). Analyses across years were performed considering year as a fixed effect. When statistically important interactions were not detected, genotype means were averaged across years and treatments, and treatment means were averaged across year and genotypes. Significant and meaningful year x treatment and year x genotype interactions were presented by year. Means were separated using an LSD at the P
0.05 level.
| RESULTS |
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Fiber starch only differed significantly between light regimes at 14 DPA, and in that case there was a strong year x treatment interaction. In 2 of 3 yr, the shade treatment caused a significant reduction in fiber starch levels (Table 5). In 1995, shade caused a 56% reduction in fiber starch at 14 DPA relative to the control, and in 1997, there was a 47% reduction in fiber starch with the shade treatment. The starch levels did not differ between treatments in 1996 at 14 DPA or at any other harvest date. By 35 DPA, very little starch was detected in the fiber.
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The results from this study indicate that both selected fiber quality traits and fiber carbohydrate levels were reduced in a low light growth regime. Because no differences in carbohydrates were detected on the last sampling date, 35 DPA, the reductions in fiber carbohydrates earlier in development might be considered only a temporary effect. However, this could be a misleading conclusion. These carbohydrates are nonstructural, transient in nature, and serve as substrates for many other biochemical reactions. A reduction in their levels at anytime during fiber development may alter the way or rate at which these carbohydrates are further metabolized into endpoint fiber structural units or other compounds during that developmental period. This metabolic alteration could further induce permanent changes in fiber development, and subsequently, quality.
Presumably, the reduced carbohydrate levels in the shade fiber were caused by lower photosynthetic rates because of the lower light levels. An alternative explanation could be delayed boll development because of reduced temperatures in the shade, but this explanation is probably not true. Previously, it was shown that boll surface temperatures were no more than 2.5°C or 6% lower in the shade compared with the control (Pettigrew, 1995). These data were collected in the afternoon sun during the hottest period of the growing season, when any temperature differences between the treatments would be at their maximum. This maximum 6% temperature differential between treatments would probably be only a minor effect on carbohydrate concentrations compared with the effect of 30% light reduction. In addition, the fact that all bolls in both the control and shaded treatments opened within 1 to 2 d of each other indicated no appreciable developmental differences.
Prior research has developed a fairly clear time sequence for many fiber developmental events. Elongation of the primary cell wall begins around anthesis, with maximum length occurring at approximately 20 to 25 DPA (DeLanghe, 1985). Secondary cell wall production consists primarily of cellulose being laid down inwardly from the primary cell wall. This synthesis starts at about 15 to 22 DPA and continues until approximately 50 DPA. Micronaire is closely associated with the degree of secondary wall deposition. The development of fiber strength is less clear and presumably more complex. However, Hsieh (1994) reported that the breaking strength of a single cotton fiber reached a maximum at 21 DPA and remained stable throughout the rest of development. No measurements were taken before 21 DPA, so presumably fiber strength was determined sometime between 0 and 21 DPA.
Some of these developmental phases overlap with some of the harvest dates when fiber carbohydrates were measured. Because the shade treatment produced weaker fibers than those produced under control conditions, it is pertinent to examine the trends in fiber carbohydrate level from 0 to 21 DPA (the period when strength is presumably determined). At 14 DPA, low light levels reduced fiber starch for 2 of the 3 yr, even though starch was detected in lower quantities relative to the glucose and fructose levels. Detection of fiber starch in this study stands in contrast with the work of Meinert and Delmer (1977), who were not able to detect starch in cell-wall enriched fractions during fiber development. This apparent contradiction might be because their cell wall purification methodology did not recover noncell wall bound starch or because they used fiber grown in vitro. Furthermore, the presence of starch in the fiber was reported by Ryser (1985) who noted that starch granules were present in plastids of the fiber.
Consistent reductions in fiber sucrose levels at 21 DPA under the low light regime may contribute to the reductions in both fiber strength and micronaire seen in the shade treatment, even though all sucrose levels were quite low. Twenty-one DPA falls near the end of the period when strength is thought to develop, but is in the early stages of secondary cell wall deposition, one of the components determining micronaire. The low levels of fiber sucrose are not surprising in lieu of recent findings concerning the cellulose synthase enzyme complex. The current thinking has a sucrose synthase, operating in the sucrose cleavage mode, closely associated with the cellulose synthase to feed UDP-glucose directly to cellulose synthase (Amor et al., 1995).
Carbohydrate levels fluctuate diurnally, seasonally, developmentally, and in response to various environmental stimuli. Furthermore, previous research has shown that the 30% shade treatment reduced lint yield and number of bolls set by 20% (Pettigrew, 1994). Assuming that the plant only sets the number of bolls that it can successfully supply with a minimum amount assimilates needed for maintaining a reasonably functioning boll, then the retained bolls are partially buffered from large swings in carbohydrate levels when the overall assimilate supply for the plant is limited. If the assimilate supply to a boll drops below a threshold level during the first 2 wk after anthesis, then that boll would probably abscise. However, if the assimilate supply is above the retain threshold level but below the optimum level, then the boll will remain but its fiber quality may suffer. Coupling this buffering capacity with the transient nature of carbohydrates, and the fact that the carbohydrates studied are not structural end-products limits the insights that can be obtained regarding carbohydrate levels and the development of fiber quality. Determining how the activities of various fiber enzymes involved in carbon metabolism and utilization are altered by growth in a low light regime would provide additional insights into the development of fiber strength and micronaire. Nevertheless, monitoring the fiber carbohydrate levels of fiber grown under conditions previously shown to reduce fiber quality further demonstrates the importance of an adequate assimilate supply for ensuring the development of desired fiber quality traits.
In conclusion, growing cotton under reduced light regimes that mimic cloudy conditions results in the production of weaker fiber with reduced micronaire. These low light conditions reduced carbohydrate levels in the subtending leaf, ovule, and fiber. Reductions in starch and sucrose at 14 and 21 DPA, respectively (a developmental period when strength presumably develops), were associated with the production of weaker fiber under shade conditions. The reductions in fiber sucrose at 21 DPA occurred during the period when the secondary cell wall is being deposited and may have contributed to the reduction in micronaire. On the basis of this research, it would appear that any technique (cultural or genetic) that increased the assimilate supply to the developing boll would help to maximize desired fiber quality traits. One caveat to this conclusion is that in the quest for greater yields, breeders have pushed the micronaire of many popular genotypes to the upper edge of the nonpenalty range for micronaire. If the micronaire genetic maximum for a given genotype were to be above the nonpenalty range, maximizing the boll's assimilate supply could produce negative consequences for producers in those instances.
| ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
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| NOTES |
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Received for publication August 23, 1999.
| REFERENCES |
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