DESENVOLVIMENTO E ESTRESSE HÍDRICO EM MUDAS DE Eucalyptus grandis (Hill ex Maiden) E Eucalyptus saligna (Smith)

Abstract

Air temperature and soil water are major abiotic factors that affect plants growth and development. The objectives of this study were two: the first was to evaluate and compare two leaf number (NL) simulation models in Eucalyptus grandis (Hill ex Maiden) and Eucalyptus saligna (Smith) seedlings. The second was to quantify the influence of soil water deficit on transpiration and on some growth (plant height and stem diameter) and development (main stem leaf number) parameters in seedlings of these two eucalyptus species. To achieve these objectives, two experiments were carried out at the field reseach area, Crop Science Departament, Federal University of Santa Maria, Santa Maria, RS, Brazil. One was a field experiment with nine sowing dates, and the other was a greenhouse experiment with two sowing dates. In the first experiment, the Wang e Engel model estimated better the NL, with a root mean square error (RMSE) of 2.7 and 3.7 leaves compared with the phyllocron model which had an RMSE of 7.1 and 10.0 leaves for Eucalyptus grandis and Eucalyptus saligna, respectively. In the second experiment, the soil water was expressed as the fraction of transpirable soil water (FTSW) and the value of FTSW that beginning of stomata closure took place was 0,9 (CV2) or 0,7 (CV1) in Eucalyptus grandis and 0.7 in Eucalyptus saligna. These FTSW values are higher than FTSW values for many annual crops and some perennial species reported in the literature. Seedlings growth and developmental parameters decreased immediately after the start of soil water deficit, represented as FTSW, but it took several calendar days for water shortage symptoms to be visible in the plants.