Cultivar dependent impact of soil amendment with water retaining polymer on olive (Olea europaea L.) under two water regimes

Abstract Hydrogels have a large interest for commercial application in agriculture. Our experiment was performed under greenhouse conditions, to examine the effect of the hydrogel “stockosorb-660” (TS) compared with non treated plants (TC). As compared to TC treatment, the hydrogel treatment increased clearly the growth responses, photosynthetic pigments, the dry weights and the relative water content of olive plantlets mainly in chemlali cv and under drought stress. Under drought stress, the chlorophyll fluorescence measurements were about 0.53 and 0.36 for chemlali and chetoui cultivars, respectively using TS treatment. In the same treatment, as compared to control plantlets, total phenols decreased damages under drought stress and were about 53.94 mg g −1 GAE and 57.37 mg g −1 GAE for chemlali and chetoui cultivars, respectively. Our results confirm also that “stockosorb” hydrogel is a cultivar dependent and seems to be probably suitable for agricultural use because of its capacity to avoid dehydration damages of young olive plants.