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Evaluation of zinc deficiency tolerance in different kinds of apple rootstocks.

FAN Xiao-dan1, LIU Fei1, WANG Yan-an1, FU Chun-xia1, YAN Yu-jing1, SHA Guang-li2, SHU Huai-rui3   

  1. (1College of Life Science, Shandong Agricultural University/State Key Laboratory of Crop Biology, Tai’an 271018, Shandong, China; 2Qingdao Institute of Agricultural Science, Qingdao 266100, Shandong, China; 3College of Horticulture Science and Technology, Shandong Agricultural University/National Research Center for Apple Engineering and Technology, Tai’an 271018, Shandong, China)
  • Online:2015-10-18 Published:2015-10-18

Abstract: The objective of this study was to screen and evaluate the zinc deficiency tolerance among eight apple rootstocks, i.e., Malus baccata, M. rockii, M. xiaojinensis, M. sikkimensis, M. sieversii, M. robusta, M. hupehensis and Malus ‘Flame’. The experiment took these 8 kinds of rootstocks as the research materials to observe and analyze the index of the rootstock’〖KG-*4〗s height, dry biomass, root architecture and zinc concentration, and with help of the fuzzy membership function to work out a comprehensive evaluation on their zinc deficiency tolerance. The result showed that several obvious zinc deficiency symptoms were observed in three kinds of rootstocks (M. rockii, M. sikkimensis and M. sieversii), such as dwarfed plant and newborn small leaves, while such symptoms were not obvious in M. xiaojinensis and M. ‘Flame’. The plant biomass, height and zinc accumulation of aerial part greatly decreased under zinc deficiency stress, while smaller reduction was observed in M. xiaojinensis than in other rootstocks. M. xiaojinensis and M. baccata had higher zinc concentrations in leaves than others. According to the fuzzy membership function and cluster analysis, the resistance of the eight apple rootstocks to zinc deficiency was ranked: M. xiaojinensis was the highest one; M. ‘Flame’ was the second; M. baccata, M. sikkimensis, M. robusta and M. hupehensis were rather weaker; M. rockii and M. sieversii demonstrated the highest sensitivity to zinc deficiency.