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WOS: 000413426800010, Water deficit conditions are a bearing on plant growth and development leading to diminished crop productivity. However, improving the crop productivity is need of the time to sustain the food security under ever increasing world population. Drought episodes are increasing with varying intensity and duration. Drought stress imposes alterations in crucial plant growth and developmental processes, including germination, plant height, stem diameter, number of leaves, leaf size and area, dry matter production and partitioning, flower and fruit production, and maturity. Nonetheless, plants show some morphological changes to cope with drought stress by lowering water loss, enhanced water uptake and maintenance of tissue water status. Some plants complete their life cycle early before the onset of drought to escape water deficit conditions. Identification of effects of drought stress on morphological attributes and morphological changes in response to drought can be promising for selection and breeding of drought resistant genotypes.

WOS: 000413426800010, Water deficit conditions are a bearing on plant growth and development leading to diminished crop productivity. However, improving the crop productivity is need of the time to sustain the food security under ever increasing world population. Drought episodes are increasing with varying intensity and duration. Drought stress imposes alterations in crucial plant growth and developmental processes, including germination, plant height, stem diameter, number of leaves, leaf size and area, dry matter production and partitioning, flower and fruit production, and maturity. Nonetheless, plants show some morphological changes to cope with drought stress by lowering water loss, enhanced water uptake and maintenance of tissue water status. Some plants complete their life cycle early before the onset of drought to escape water deficit conditions. Identification of effects of drought stress on morphological attributes and morphological changes in response to drought can be promising for selection and breeding of drought resistant genotypes.

A pot experiment was conducted to investigate the morphological, physiological and biochemical straw mulch-induced response of soybean under water-deficit conditions. Soybean (Glycine max L. Merrill) variety “Xidou 7” was treated with varying quantity of wheat straw mulch viz: (control (no straw mulch), 3750, 7500, 11000 and 14750 kg/ha) under water-deficit conditions. The experimental results indicate that the varying quantity of straw mulch significantly improved the plant growth in terms of plant height, leaf area, number of leaves/plant and stem diameter. Mulch treatment also significantly enhanced the photosynthesis (PN), intercellular CO2 concentration (Ci), transpiration rate (E) and stomatal conductance (gs) over the control. The gas exchange parameters were improved depending on the quantity of wheat straw mulch; significantly highPN and E was observed in the treatment where wheat straw was applied at the rate of 11000 kg/ha. Wheat straw mulch treatments led to noticeable reduction in malondialdehyde (MDA) contents, which protected the drought stressed soybean plants from membrane damage. Furthermore, the free proline contents linearly increased with increase in straw mulch quantity. It is evident that wheat straw mulch can considerably modulate growth, photosynthetic and physio-biochemical attributes of soybean under drought. The research will effectively solve seasonal drought problem and can provide technical assistance for sustainable agriculture development.Keywords: Soybean, growth, water-deficit, wheat straw mulchAfrican Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 12(18), pp. 2360-2365