Abstract:

In order to solve the problem of water shortage faced by blueberry planting in high-altitude mountainous areas, this study takes 11 introduced blueberry varieties as experimental materials. It aims to evaluate the drought tolerance potential of the varieties under natural drought conditions by setting up the comparative experiment method of the drought group and the watering group. In 2021, leaf morphological and anatomical observations were carried out on blueberries in the drought group. Statistical methods were used to explore the drought tolerance of different blueberry varieties while screening key indicators for leaf morphology and anatomy. In 2022, a bivariate analysis of variance method was employed to compare the yield components between the drought group and the watered group, in order to assess the production recovery potential of each variety after being affected by drought. The results showed that there were significant differences among different blueberry varieties in terms of drought tolerance. The order of drought tolerance of the 11 blueberry varieties from strong to weak was as follows: ‘Misty’> ‘Bluecrop’> ‘Sweetheart’> ‘Brigitta’> ‘Jubilee’> ‘Bluecrop’> ‘Shengshi’> ‘O'Neal’> ‘Boniface’> ‘Garden blue’> ‘Duke’. Through screening 10 leaves morphological and anatomical indicators, 4 typical indicators for evaluating the drought tolerance of blueberries were obtained, namely, the thickness of the upper epidermis, the thickness of the leaf, the thickness of the spongy tissue and the stomatal density. The results of the empirical analysis showed that ‘Misty’, ‘Bluecrop’ and ‘Sweetheart’ had relatively strong drought tolerance, while ‘Boniface’, ‘Garden blue’ and ‘Duke’ had relatively weak drought tolerance. This conclusion was consistent with that of the drought tolerance evaluation.

Key words: blueberry, natural drought conditions, drought resistance, membership function, bivariate variance