ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Abiotic Stress
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1579611
The smell of spud-stress: A pilot study testing the viability of volatile organic compounds as markers of drought stress in potato (Solanum tuberosum)
Provisionally accepted
- School of Agriculture, Policy and Development, University of Reading, Reading, United Kingdom
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Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are products of plant secondary metabolism with the potential for signalling early stress response. This pilot study investigated the potential of VOCs as markers for drought stress in potato. We hypothesised that differences in VOC emissions between cultivars may reflect genotypes with greater adaptive efficiency to drought stress. Using thermal desorption collection and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) techniques, we profiled the VOCs emitted by two potato cultivars, Maris Piper and Désirée, under well-watered and drought conditions, across a four-week period (n = 3 per cultivar, treatment, and time-point). We identified 23 compounds, and tentatively identified another 49 compounds, including sesquiterpenes, alkanes, monoterpenes, and methylbenzenes. Statistical analysis revealed that seven compounds showed significant differences between cultivars and drought/well-watered treatments. Two farnesene isomers, a xylene isomer, 2,6dimethyldecane, decahydronaphthalene, and 2-methyldecalin were identified as tentative markers of drought stress. Our findings suggest that VOCs could be used for detection of drought stress in potato plants, contributing to improved irrigation management and the breeding of more drought-tolerant varieties. Further research is needed to validate these findings and explore the underlying mechanisms.
Keywords: Gas chromatography mass spectrometry, Farnesene, 2-methyldecalin, Plant Stress, Plant Biochemistry
Received: 19 Feb 2025; Accepted: 23 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Bell, Radha and Hill. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Luke Bell, School of Agriculture, Policy and Development, University of Reading, Reading, United Kingdom
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