LAUSR

ABSTRACT Sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum L.) is an economic crop cultivated in the tropical and subtropical zones. It is the world’s major crop according to production quantity. Sugarcane crop faces all types of environmental constraints due to its long life cycle period. Among various stresses, water stress creates a major obstacle to sugarcane production. Water deficit during formative stage in sugarcane causes more deleterious effect on crop growth. Plants develop mechanism to perceive external stress signals and adapt by changing in their physiological and biochemical responses. Therefore, this experiment was undertaken to elucidate the changes occur in to physiological and biochemical parameters under water stress in ten sugarcane genotypes. The water stress was applied by water suppression during formative stage (120–150 days). The third fully expanded leaf from random plant of each biological replication was collected on 120th day (irrigated condition), 135th day and 150th day after applying water stress. The obtained results showed significant differences among physio-biochemical responses in all genotypes. Minor fluctuations in physio-biochemical observations were found to be in 15 days of water stress, whereas higher level of percent changes were to be noted in samples of 30 days water stress. A minimum reduction in RWC, MSI, SCMR value, NR activity and higher increase in proline accumulation, catalase, peroxidase activities were found to be in sugarcane genotypes Co 98014, Co 0118, CoPk 05191, Co 0238 and Co 05011. Whereas the genotype Co 89003 and CoJ 64 were more affected in both stress treatment.