Screening Methods for Plant-Coating Materials and Transpiration Inhibitory Effect of Soybean Oil to Crops

Plants as well as crops are damaged by a combination of the hot and dry winds that has been a major factor in the reduction of crop production. A means to protect them from damaging conditions is to consider a coating material. In this study, we established laboratory screening methods to find a coating material to protect a crop from rapid transpiration caused by various factors. In a test measuring the weight loss of kidney bean seedlings for 6 days, Avion treatments decreased its weight loss (P=0.05). Owing to long-time spend in completing this assay, we performed a more simple method using a cobalt chloride paper strip, which changes from blue to red colors under water condition. Beewax, guagum, paraffin liquid, soybean oil, and PE-635 gave a waterproofing effect above 37 and 43% at 0.5 and 1 h after treatment, respectively. However, these tested materials did not show significant waterproofing results at 2 h. Although the methods produced reasonable results, a screening method to obtain more objective data is needed. An alternative is to use an instrument that can detect the transpiration of crop leaves. In a preliminary test using barley leaves, a portable photosynthesis system showed transpiration inhibition of 2% soybean oil and 10 times-diluted Avion under field conditions. In another test using the leaves of maize seedlings and apricot tree, 2% liquid paraffin and plant oils such as apricot oil, linseed oil, olive oil, and soybean oil showed significant transpiration inhibition (P=0.05). Especially, paraffin liquid and soybean oil selected from above tests gave good transpiration inhibitory effects against rice at 2%. In addition, the mixture of 2% soybean oil and a spreader showed more elevated inhibition results comparing with soybean oil or the spreader alone indicating that the spreader may be attributed to more uniform diffusion of the hydrophobic material onto the leaf surface of maize seedlings. The hydrophobic material coated physically the stomata and cuticle layers on leaf surfaces of rice. These hydrophobic materials screened in this study are expected to be used as plant coating materials.