Photosynthetic characteristics of subtending leaves and their relationships with soybean pod development under heat, drought and combined stresses

Soybean is usually grown under rain-fed conditions, and long-term drought stress often occurs with short-term heat stress. This study aimed to investigate changes in the photosynthetic characteristics of subtending leaves and their relationships with pod development under short-term heat, long-term drought and their combined stresses. Short-term heat stress lasted for 5 days began at R5 stage, and long-term drought stress lasted from R5 stage until maturity, respectively. No significant effect was observed on pod development under short-term heat stress alone due to unaffected net photosynthetic rate after treatment and PSII recovery after the heat stress release. Except that the reduction of sucrose content had been brought forward from 12 to 5 days after treatment under combined stresses, application of combined stresses caused similar responses to long-term drought stress alone on the photosynthetic characteristics of subtending leaves and pod development, but more pronounced under combined stresses. Reduced pod weight and seed weight per pod under long-term drought stress alone or combined stress due to a decrease in the net photosynthetic rate and production of sucrose and starch, especially after 19 days of treatment. Findings from this study demonstrate that under combined stress, long-term drought stress had a dominant effect on the photosynthetic performance of subtending leaves and pod development over short-term heat stress; moreover, even short-term heat stress also exacerbates the negative effects of long-term drought stress.