Morphoanatomical changes in crops under soil sickness

MERCADO, M. I.; COLL ARAOZ, M. V.; SAMPIETRO, D. A.; PONESSA, G. I.

Soil Sickness

Studium Press LLC

Lugar: Houston; Año: 2011; p. 227 - 240

Soil sickness is a reduction in both yield and quality of crop, when grown on the same land for many years. It is a complex soil borne problem where several physico-chemical and biological factors interact and  induce  a crop stress. Stress is a state in which increasing adverse environmental conditions initially destabilize the plant physiology, followed by a physiological normalization that improves the plant resistance (Larcher, 1995). The stressed plants often exhibit visual damage symptoms that can be related to a particular stress source. Histological observation of plant anatomical forms and structures shows the onset of crop decline earlier and more accurately than visual symptoms (Briskin et al., 1981; Veen, 1982; Bawazir and Idle, 1989; Lindbeck and Brlansky 2000; Tattini et al., 2006; Nico et al.,2002; Gunawardena et al., 2005; Turner et al., 2009). Morpho-anatomical changes also provide valuable information regarding the nature of stress source. In this chapter, we describe the basic experiments to detect the morpho-anatomical changes that indicate how plant tissues respond to specific biotic and abiotic factors associated to soil sickness.