ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Abiotic Stress
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1641434
This article is part of the Research TopicBiochemical and Physiological Insights into Plant Adaptation and Resilience Under Abiotic StressesView all 4 articles
The Regulatory Effects of Maize Saving Irrigation in Arid Region
Provisionally accepted
- 1Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, China
- 2Xinjiang University, Urumqi, China
- 3Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
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The increased drought stress caused by worldwide climate-change-driven aridification has exacerbated water scarcity in agricultural production, posing a significant challenge to agricultural sustainability. This study was conducted at Huaxing Farm in Changji City, Xinjiang, establishing five irrigation gradients: 100% (CK), 90% (W1), 80% (W2), 70% (W3), and 60% (W4) of the conventional water supply (full irrigation requirement). The primary objective was to systematically investigate the effects of water regulation on physiological and biochemical parameters, yield formation, and kernel quality in maize plants. The results indicated that moderate-regulated deficit irrigation (W1) activated a synergistic mechanism that combined osmotic adjustment and antioxidant defense. This specific physiological adaptation was characterized by elevated proline accumulation, activation of key enzyme systems, and stabilization of malondialdehyde levels, signifying effective mitigation of drought-induced cellular damage. This physiological optimization improved photoassimilate partitioning to the kernels, resulting in an 8.0% yield increase despite a 10% reduction in water application.Additionally, it enhanced quality parameters, including protein content (7.59 g/100 g) and starch content (68.1 g/100 g). In contrast, severe regulated deficit irrigation (W4) failed to alleviate drought stress, which significantly induced biomass loss and inhibited yield formation. A multidimensional TOPSIS-entropy weight method was used to evaluate the effectiveness of these irrigation treatments in the context of drought adaptation, offering a holistic, weighted integration of multiple traits as a more suitable approach compared to traditional single-index evaluations.The comprehensive review revealed that W1 was the top-performing treatment, achieving the highest overall evaluation index of 0.728. Therefore, W1 represented a promising irrigation strategy, providing insights into the physiological basis for synergistic stress resistance triggered by moderate water deficit and enabling yield gains with 10% less irrigation.
Keywords: Arid region, Regulated deficit irrigation, Maize, physiological responses, Yield and quality, TOPSIS-entropy weight method
Received: 05 Jun 2025; Accepted: 11 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhao, Li, Lin, Gao, Li, Wu, He and Sun. 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: Weihong Sun, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, China
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