Simona Mariana POPESCU¹, Aurel POPA¹, Elena GAVRILESCU¹ & Marius GRUIA^1
1University of Craiova, Faculty of Horticulture, A. I. Cuza Street, No. 13, 200 585, Craiova, Romania, popescu_simona83@yahoo.com, apopa@central.ucv.ro, gavrilescu_elena@yahoo.com, gruiamarius@gmail.com

THE EFFECTS OF AIR POLLUTION ON THE MAIN PHYSIOLOGICAL PROCESSES OF THE GRAPEVINE GROWN IN THE VICINITY OF A POWER PLANT

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The impact of air pollution can cause severe damages to the vineyards located near industrial areas. This study was conducted in order to assess the impact of air pollutants, respectively SO₂, NO₂ and O₃, emitted from a thermal power plant in Craiova municipality, Romania, on some physiological parameters of the grapevine (V. vinifera L., cv. Merlot), grown in the field, measured in different phenological stages from May to September, 2010. In this regard two vineyards were chosen, having different concentrations of pollutants: the urban site (Şimnic), located near the thermal power plant and the rural site (Banu Mărăcine), considered the vineyard which is not subject to pollution. The 8-h daily mean SO₂, NO₂ and O₃ concentrations registered higher values for the urban site that varied from 24.2 to 36.8 μg/m³ SO₂, 20.2 to 28.45 μg/m³ for NO₂ and from 68.1 to 105.4 μg/m³ in case of O₃ compared to the rural site that had lower values. The air pollution around the thermal power plant lead to a significant reduction of 98.8% in photosynthetic rate at veraison stage, 61.5% in transpiration at rippening and 75.4% in stomatal conductance at shoot growth. The study highlights that the emitted pollutants by the thermal power plant affect the environment and the adjacent agricultural crops, resulting that the grapevine is a sensitive plant to air pollution.