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Research Article

Legume Research, volume 44 issue 9 (september 2021) : 1087-1091

Morphological and Physiological Characterization of Sesbania genotypes

Sontosh Chandra Chanda1,*, Md. Rishad Abdullah1, Md. Abdur Razzak1, A.K.M. Golam Sarwar1
1Laboratory of Plant Systematics, Department of Crop Botany, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh 2202, Bangladesh.

  • Submitted03-12-2019|

  • Accepted14-07-2020|

  • First Online 28-09-2020|

  • doi 10.18805/LR-4294

Cite article:- Chanda Chandra Sontosh, Abdullah Rishad Md., Razzak Abdur Md., Sarwar Golam A.K.M. (2021). Morphological and Physiological Characterization of Sesbania genotypes . Legume Research. 44(9): 1087-1091. doi: 10.18805/LR-4294.

ABSTRACT

Background: Sesbania species are widely used in different agricultural systems providing green manure, forage, firewood, pulp, food, landscape decoration, control of soil erosion and soil improvement. The biomass yield and yield contributing descriptors of Sesbania depend on different physiological traits. 

Methods: An experiment was conducted at Bangladesh Agricultural University to find out the morphological and physiological variability among four Sesbania genotypes. Sesbania species, viz. S. bispinosa, S. cannabina, S. sesban and S. rostrata, were used as experimental materials. Seeds were sown in 2.5 m × 2.0 m plots to maintain 200 plants m-2 following randomized complete block design with three replications. Seed length and width, 1000-seed weight, germination percentage, vigour index, seedling length and biomass yield parameters were recorded. Different growth data were recorded and physiological descriptors were calculated at every 10 days intervals up to 60 days after sowing (DAS). 

Result: The results revealed that the highest value of plant height, number of leaflets pair leaf-1, leaf length and biomass yield were found in S. bispinosa and the lowest in S. sesban at 60 DAS. Sesbania sesban produced higher biomass and studied growth descriptors up to 20 DAS and thereafter declined, however, other three species produced higher biomass and studied growth descriptors from 30 to 60 DAS.

INTRODUCTION

The genus Sesbania L., belongs to sub-family Papilionoideae, family Leguminosae, consists of ca. 60 species encompassing annuals, perennials, herbs, shrubs and trees (Evans, 1990). Being a member of legume crops, Sesbania capable to fix nitrogen in the soil through Legume-Rhizobium symbiosis, improves soil organic matter status and other uses for fodder, fuel, wood, firewood, mulch, ground cover and others in traditional agroforestry (Kalpana et al., 2002; Porpavai et al., 2005; Takawale et al., 2016; Chanda, 2019). In Bangladesh, five species of Sesbania viz.  S. sesban (L.) Merr., S. bispinosa (Jacq.) W. Wight [former S. aculeata (Wild.) Poir], S. cannabina (Retz.) Poir., S. grandiflora (L.) Poir. and S. javanica Miq., are found. However, S. sesban, S. bispinosa and S. cannabina are commonly known as dhaincha in Bangladesh (Prain, 1903; Ahmed et al., 2009). Among these, S. bispinosa is the prominent one (Chanda et al., 2019). An exotic species S. rostrata Bremek. and Oberm., commonly known as African dhaincha, is also used as a green manure crop; although the germination percentage of seeds of this species is comparatively lower than that of indigenous dhaincha species. The establishment of a plant depends on ecological perception and increase of initial growth, relative growth rate and plant physiological processes. Quick initial growth is often associated with a shorter lifespan, or alternatively, genotypes that are characterized as slow starters usually have a longer lifespan. The first one may be suitable when anticipating shorter lifespan (Larcher, 1995). Growth parameters include plant height and girth as the most applicable parameters for determining the genotypes potential for suitable plant growth (Lamers et al., 2006). Assortment of improved genotypes possesses plant morphology, physiology and agronomic uniformity (Aguirre et al., 2003). Within a population has great variability in growth habit, color of leaf, flowers, pod and seed (Berrocal et al., 2002). The biomass yield and yield contributing parameters depend on some physiological traits. Morphological and physiological basis differentiate the yield among the genotypes of Sesbania.
       
Crop growth and development and pertinent variables are necessary to quantity for crop improvement. Variation in biomass accumulation in diverse genotypes is correlated to several factors viz. leaf area (LA), crop growth rate (CGR), net assimilation rate (NAR) and relative growth rate (RGR) and root-shoot ratio (Malek et al., 2012). Crop growth, physiological descriptors viz. CGR, NAR, RGR and LA and yield varied among the varieties (Pandey et al., 1978). Canopy photosynthesis rate is determined through LAI, CGR and the optimum LAI and NAR afford higher biological yield (Mondal et al., 2007). The CGR and RGR measure the increase in biomass with a given amount of assimilatory material at a given point/period (Rajput et al., 2017). The capability of efficient biomass partitioning between the vegetative and reproductive parts produces high economic yield (Shiraiwa et al., 2004; Oh et al., 2007). A better understanding of crop development and biomass yield attributing characters and the partitioning of assimilates into biomass yield improvement of green manure crops. Very little work has been done in this regard in Sesbania in tropic areas. A detailed analysis of biomass partitioning with respect to morphology and physiology of four Sesbania genotypes was, therefore, undertaken.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Experimental site
 
The experiment was conducted at Field and Plant Systematics Laboratories of the Department of Crop Botany, Bangladesh Agricultural University during April to July, 2016 to find out the variability in morphology and physiological features of four Sesbania genotypes. Geographically it is located at 24° 75’ N latitude and 90° 50’ E longitudes at the elevation of 18 m above the sea level (UNDP and FAO, 1988#undp_1988). The initial soil of the Field was analyzed and had the following characters: pH 5.82, organic matter 1.53%, total nitrogen 0.09%, phosphorus 3.66 ppm, potassium 0.15 meq/100g, Sulfur 2.51 ppm.
 
Laboratory experiment and germination test
 
A total of four genotypes from four Sesbania species viz. S. cannabina (Accession #28), S. bispinosa (Accession #71), S. sesban (Accession #81) and S. rostrata (Accession #105), were used as experimental materials. The observations like seed length and width, 1000-seed weight, germination percentage, vigor index, seedling length and biomass yield were recorded. The experiment was laid out in a completely randomized design with four replications. From each genotype, 50 healthy seeds were spread uniformly on each Petri-dish using filter paper as medium of growth. Cumulative germination (CG) percentage of seeds was counted daily up to 10 days (Bewley and Black, 1994).
 
 
 
Where
n is the number of seeds germinated at each day and N is the total number of seeds sown.
       
Vigor index (VI) was calculated based on the percentage of seed germination and mean length of shoot and root (Sreelalitha et al., 2015).
 
 VI= (Mean shoot length + Mean root length) × Germination percentage

Field experiment, design and crop establishment
 
The experiment was laid out in randomized complete block design with three replications. Sesbania seeds were sown in four lines of 2. 5 m × 2.0 m plots with a spacing of 50 cm (row-row) × 15 cm (plant-plant) to maintain 200 plants m-2. Data on different morphological and physiological growth parameters were recorded at every 10-day intervals up to 60 days after sowing (DAS).
 
Data measurement on plant growth parameters
 
Plant morphological descriptors were collected from 60 days old plants. Morphological attributes were measured with a ruler and using a digital slide callipers with a precision of 0.1 to 150 mm. The morphological descriptors viz. length of shoot, root, base diameter, number of leaves plant-1, internodes number plant-1, inter-node length, leaf length and leaf width were measured.
 
Data collection on biomass production
 
Ten plants from each plot were carefully uprooted and roots were cleanly washed in water. The root and shoot portions were separated. The samples were air dried and subsequently oven dried at 72°±2°C for 72 hours to constant weight. Biomass accumulation study was carried out at 10 days interval from 10 DAS to 60 DAS. Following growth studies were made using the prescribed formulae:

The biomass accumulation of the crop per unit area per unit of time is referred to crop growth rate (CGR), expressed as g m-2 d-1. The mean CGR values for the crop during the sampling intervals were computed using the formula of Brown (1984):
 
 
 
Where,
W1 = Total biomass of plant at time t1
W2 = Total biomass of plant at time t2
SA = Ground area occupied by the plant at each sampling.
       
The relative growth rate at which a plant incorporates new material into its sink is measured by relative growth rate (RGR) of biomass accumulation and is expressed in g g-1 d-1. The RGR was worked out by following the formula of Radford (1967):
 
 

Where ,
W1 and W2 is initial and final biomass weight at the time t1 and t2, respectively, log refers to natural Logarithm.
 
Root-shoot ratio (RSR) is the ratio of root biomass and shoot biomass.
 
 

Shoot weight ratio (SWR) is the ratio of shoot biomass and total biomass.
 
 
 
Data analysis
 
The collected data were analyzed with Excel application to determine the arithmetic mean, standard deviation, coefficient of variance and range among the accessions (de Melo et al., 2016).

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Seed and seedling morpho-physiological characters
 
Variations in seed length and width, 1000-weight, seedling length, vigor index and biomass production were observed in different Sesbania genotypes (Table 1). The highest seed length was found in S. bispinosa (3.81 mm) and the lowest in S. rostrata (3.37 mm), however, the highest seed width was observed in S. sesban (2.93 mm) and the lowest in S. bispinosa (2.07 mm). Chanda et al., (2018) reported that cylindrical-shaped seed (S. bispinosa and S. cannabina) of Sesbania species showed the longest seed length and rectangular-shaped seed (S. sesban and S. rostrata) showed the shortest seed length. The maximum 1000-seed weight and germination (%) was found in S. sesban (21.5 g) and S. bispinosa (85%), respectively; however, the lowest value was in S. cannabina (13.6 g) and S. rostrata (26%), respectively (Table 1). Seed germination depends on the reserve food in seed, nutrients, environmental factors and genetic makeup (Gan et al., 1996; Marcos-Filho, 2005). The longest seedling length was produced in S. sesban (16.21 cm) and shortest in S. rostrata (8.06 cm) at 10 days after sowing (DAS). The results revealed that initial growth rate of S. sesban was higher than those of other three Sesbania species. The highest vigour index was found in S cannabina (1115) followed by S. bispinosa (1094), S. sesban (1054) and S. rostrata (210). Maximum biomass was produced in S. sesban (0.020 g plant-1) and minimum in S. rostrata (0.007 g plant-1) at 10 DAS (Table 1).
 

Table 1: Seed and seedling characteristics of four Sesbania species.


 
Morphological parameters
 
The tallest plant was attained in S. bispinosa (209 cm) and the shortest in S. sesban (120 cm) at 60 DAS (Table 2). The base diameter varied from 0.83 to 1.25 cm. The highest internode number plant-1 was found in S. cannabina (36) followed by S. bispinosa (34), S. rostrata (29) and S. sesban (20). The inter-node length was longest in S. rostrata (5.8 cm) and shortest in S. cannabina (3.8 cm). Plant height, base diameter, number of leaves plant-1, inter-node number and length may be varied due to their genetic makeup of the genotypes. The maximum number of leaves plant-1 was recorded in S. cannabina followed by S. bispinosa, S. rostrata and S. sesban (Table 2). The highest number of leaflets pair leaf-1 was 44 in S. bispinosa and lowest was 25 in S. sesban at 60 DAS. The number of leaflets pair leaf-1 could be used as one of the most important vegetative descriptors for Sesbania species identification. Chanda et al., (2019) supported these results. The longest leaf was 39.2 cm and the shortest was 23.8 cm in S. bispinosa and S. sesban, respectively. The highest leaf width was S. rostrata (8.1 cm) and the lowest was S. cannabina (5.5 cm). The longest leaflet was 4.3 cm in S. bispinosa and the lowest was 2.08 cm in S. cannabina (Table 2). The broadest leaflet width was found in S. rostrata (0.68 cm) and thinnest was in S. cannabina. The leaflet pairs per leaf, length and width of leaf and leaflets length and width have emerged as descriptors of taxonomic importance (Heering et al., 1996; Joshi-Saha and Gopalakrishna, 2007). The leaf angle with stem varied from 54-72o at 60 DAS.
 

Table 2: Morphological descriptors (Mean ± SE) of four Sesbania genotypes at 60 days after sowing.


       
The highest biomass (31.19 g plant-1) was produced in S. bispinosa followed by S. cannabina (27.63 g plant-1), S. rostrata (19.30 g plant-1) and S. sesban (11.55 g plant-1) at 60 DAS (Table 2). The biomass production might be depending on plant height, base diameter, number and length of inter-node of the genotype. It appeared that S. bispinosa was more efficient for biomass production compared to S. cannabina, S. rostrata and S. sesban. Chanda et al., (2017) reported that S. bispinosa produced the maximum plant height, number of branches plant-1, inter-node number and length as well as biomass compared to S. cannabina and S. sesban.
 
Physiological parameters
 
Crop growth rate, relative growth rate, root-shoot ratio and shoot weight ratio were significantly varied among four Sesbania genotypes (Fig 1 and 2). Up to 20 DAS, all physiological parameters were higher in S. sesban and thereafter declined. Chanda et al., (2017) reported S. sesban produced higher biomass at the early growth stages (up to 20 DAS) comparatively that of the other two species. After 20 DAS, it produced lower biomass compared to S. bispinosa and S. cannabina. On the other hand, S. bispinosa, S. cannabina and S. rostrata showed initially growth rate was lower (up to 20 DAS) and it was increased up to 60 DAS compared to S. sesban. Chanda et al., (2017) further reported that S. bispinosa produced the highest biomass yield followed by S. cannabina and S. sesban at 30 to 60 DAS. Therefore, cultivation of S. sesban can be suggested in a very short rotation [Boro rice-(dhaincha)-Jute-T. Aman rice-Mustard and/or Boro rice-(dhaincha)-T. Aus rice-T. Aman rice-Mustard] and S. bispinosa for a longer period [Boro rice-(dhaincha)-T. Aman rice-Mustard/Winter vegetables] to add maximum organic matter to the soil.
 

Fig 1: (a) Crop growth rate (CGR) and (b) Relative growth rate (RGR) of four Sesbania genotypes at different dates after sowing.


 

FIG 2: (a) Root-shoot ratio and (b) Shoot weight ratio of four Sesbania genotypes at different dates after sowing.

CONCLUSION

Result from the experiment revealed that maximum morphological parameters showed higher value in S. bispinosa compared to S. cannabina, S. rostrata and S. sesban. However, S. sesban produced higher physiological growth parameters up to 20 DAS and thereafter it declined. On the other hand, S. bispinosa, S. cannabina and S. rostrata produced higher physiological growth parameters from 30 to 60 DAS.

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