Accessible summary
What is known on the subject?
Paediatric sleep problems are clinical conditions that often coexist with other mental health problems and meet criteria that warrant the ...implementation of screening procedures, including high prevalence, and significant clinical impact.
Researchers have designed the BEARS, a user‐friendly paediatric sleep screening tool that seems to increase the amount of sleep information recorded, as well as the likelihood of identifying sleep problems during routine health encounters. Nonetheless, there are no studies using the BEARS in Spanish‐speaking samples.
What this paper adds to existing knowledge?
Using a sample of children with mental health problems, this study provides support for the use of the Spanish version of the BEARS to identify the most common sleep problems seen in paediatric populations.
What are the implications for practice?
Considering how frequent sleep problems are, it is especially important for health professionals working with children in general, and with children with mental health problems in particular, to be aware of and be encouraged to use simple brief screening tools for paediatric sleep problems.
Objective
Research studies describe a high prevalence of sleep problems in children with mental health problems, up to 50%, and its role as a risk factor in the development of psychopathology. These often go unnoticed and are not evaluated in the clinical field. Our objective was to assess the concurrent validity of the BEARS, a brief paediatric sleep screening instrument, using the Children Sleep Habits Questionnaire (CSHQ) as the comparison instrument.
Methods
In this cross‐sectional descriptive study, the BEARS was applied by a registered nurse to a sample of parents of children aged 2–16 years (n = 60, 71.7% male) who attended a mental healthcare facility (located in Murcia, Spain) for the first time to receive a group psychoeducational intervention. The association between the information collected with the BEARS and scores on the related subscales of the CSHQ was assessed by Mann–Whitney U tests.
Results
Children who, according to the BEARS, had a sleep problem obtained scores on the CSHQ‐related subscales significantly higher than children who did not have a sleep problem (all Ps < 0.05).
Conclusion
Our results support the concurrent validity of the Spanish translation of the BEARS to detect sleep problems in paediatric nursing assessments. Further studies, with bigger and more heterogeneous samples, are warranted.
The use of trunk diameter fluctuations and their derived parameters for irrigation scheduling in woody crops is reviewed. The strengths and weaknesses of these continuously measured plant-based water ...stress indicators compared with other discretely measured indicators for diagnosing plant water status in young and mature trees are discussed. Aspects such as sensor reading variability, signal intensity and the relationship between trunk diameter fluctuations and plant water status are analyzed in order to assess their usefulness as water stress indicators. The physiological significance of maximum and minimum daily trunk diameter and maximum daily trunk shrinkage (MDS) are also considered. Current knowledge of irrigation protocols and baselines for obtaining maximum daily trunk shrinkage reference values is discussed and new research objectives are proposed. We analyze the response of woody crops to continuous deficit irrigation scheduled by maintaining MDS signal intensity at threshold values to generate mild, moderate and severe water stress and assess the possibility of using linear variable displacement transducer (LVDT) sensors in trunk as a precision tool for regulated deficit irrigation scheduling. Finally, the possibility of using MDS signal intensity as a tool to match the irrigation regime to tree water requirements is also reviewed.
Water deficit is one of the most important abiotic factors that reduce the agricultural productivity. The impact of irrigation levels on bioactive compounds of one commercial pomegranate cultivar ...(‘Mollar de Elche’) was studied through LC–MS-based untargeted metabolomics approach. Two treatments were applied to explore crop responses to the timing and the regime of the irrigation applications. The main goal of the present study was to validate the untargeted metabolomics approach as analytical tool to find new markers related with the water deficit. Robust classification and prediction model was built with the use of supervised technique, partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA). The results revealed that pomegranate juices obtained from plants grown under DI
r
conditions experimented physiological stress, which significantly increased their bioactive compounds (polyphenols, phenylpropanoids, peptides, benzoic acid, tannins, and phospholipids) in comparison with the Control treatments. The results indicate that controlled irrigation stress would increase the production of bioactive compounds by increasing the phenylpropanoids metabolism. New metabolites were tentatively identified in pomegranate juice by the untargeted metabolomics techniques. This study showed, for the first time, the satisfactory application of the untargeted metabolomics approach using an UHPLC-QTOF system to identify bioactive secondary metabolites from pomegranate juices to discriminate among different irrigation conditions.
The close rosette growth form, short petioles and small leaves of Arabidopsis thaliana make measurements with commercial gas exchange cuvettes difficult. This difficulty can be overcome by growing A. ...thaliana plants in 'ice-cream cone-like' soil pots. This design permitted simultaneous gas exchange and chlorophyll fluorescence measurements from which the first estimates of mesophyll conductance to CO₂ (gm) in Arabidopsis were obtained and used to determine photosynthetic limitations during plant ageing from c. 30-45 d. Estimations of gm showed maximum values of 0.2 mol CO₂ m⁻² s⁻¹ bar⁻¹, lower than expected for a thin-leaved annual species. The parameterization of the response of net photosynthesis (AN) to chloroplast CO₂ concentrations (Cc) yielded estimations of the maximum velocity of carboxylation (Vc,max_Cc) which were also lower than those reported for other annual species. As A. thaliana plants aged from 30 to 45 d, there was a 40% decline of AN that was entirely the result of increased diffusional limitations to CO₂ transfer, with gm being the largest. The results suggest that in A. thaliana AN is limited by low gm and low capacity for carboxylation. Decreased gm is the main factor involved in early age-induced photosynthetic decline.
► No information exists on mechanisms developed by pomegranate to confront drought. ► Irrigation criteria used by the growers in the area did not satisfy pomegranate water requirements ► Decreases in ...leaf conductance avoid leaf turgor loss (avoidance mechanism). ► Osmotic adjustment contributes to maintain leaf turgor (tolerance mechanism). ► High relative apoplastic water contribute to the retention of water under drought.
Adult pomegranate trees (
Punica granatum (L.) cv. Mollar de Elche) were submitted to three irrigation treatments. Control (T0) plants were drip irrigated in order to guarantee non-limiting soil water conditions, T1 plants (deficit irrigation) were drip irrigated according to the criteria commonly used by the growers in the area and T2 plants were subjected to water withholding and recovery periods of 34 and 6 days, respectively, during the summer of 2009. The results indicated that pomegranate plants confront water stress by developing stress avoidance and stress tolerance mechanisms. From the time of deficit irrigation (T1) and water withholding (T2) began to be applied, leaf conductance decreased in order to control water loss via transpiration and to avoid leaf turgor loss (stress avoidance mechanism). Close to the end of the stress period, when maximum stress levels had developed, active osmotic adjustment was triggered, contributing to the maintenance of leaf turgor (stress tolerance mechanism). Other drought tolerance characteristics commonly seen in xeromorphic plants were also observed, such as high relative apoplastic water content (42–58%), which would contribute to the retention of water at low leaf water potentials.
•Four strategies were applied to evaluate physiology, yield and fruit quality.•SDI, RDIfg and RDIr obtained 37 %, 27 % and 8 % of water saving, respectively.•Stem water potential and CWSI were more ...sensitive to water stress than gas exchange.•RDIfg could be an alternative due to the yield maintenance and fruit quality.•RDIr treatment produced the highest content of bioactive compounds in fruits.
Deficit irrigation (DI) strategies have frequently studied in drought resistant crops to optimise water-use-efficiency and save water. Four different DI strategies were studied in fifteen-year-old pomegranate trees (Punica granatum (L.) cv. Mollar de Elche) during the season of 2021: irrigation at 120 % of ETc during the whole season (control, C); irrigation at 50 % of ETc during the whole season (SDI); irrigation at 50 % of ETc during the linear fruit growth phase (RDIfg) and irrigation at 25 % of ETc during the ripening phase (RDIr). The effects of DI treatments on water relations, gas exchange, canopy temperature, yield and fruit quality were analysed. Water status of pomegranate responded closely to changes in soil water content. The reduction of leaf osmotic potential and leaf osmotic potential at full turgor to SDI, RDIfg and RDIr treatments indicated an osmotic adjustment. The stem water potential and the crop water stress index were more sensitive to water stress than gas exchange. SDI treatment increased non-marketable fruit weight and number. Nevertheless, RDIfg treatment could be considered a non-critical period because of the low sensitivity to water stress of trees, yield maintenance and the increase of nutritional organic compounds in fruits, saving 27 % of irrigation water. The application of RDIr produced the highest content of bioactive compounds, saving 8 % of water saving with a slight increase of non-marketable fruit number and weight. This suggests that the intensity and duration in which the deficit irrigation was applied could set the threshold irrigation conditions above which pomegranate production could be negatively affected.
The shortage of water in many parts of the world has led to the development of new irrigation strategies such as regulated deficit irrigation and sustained deficit irrigation. Water deficit induces ...different morphological and physiological responses in ornamental plants, but the application of irrigation strategies can obtain quality plants well adapted to the environment. Deficit irrigation controls plant growth, and can be considered a sustainable technique which avoids the use of plant growth regulators. In addition, root system morphology can be modified by water stress to improve the ability to extract water from the soil and strengthen a plant's physical support. In addition, the application of deficit irrigation during nursery period is a technique frequently used to harden plants before transplanting. Water deficit affects morphological and physiological aspects that might provide a capacity to adapt to adverse conditions. All these features contribute to increasing water use efficiency and the root to shoot ratio and root density, promoting the more rapid establishment of ornamental plants in garden or landscape settings. In view of the results obtained, it is possible to apply and validate the most appropriate irrigation strategy for each species and to obtain the full benefits of applying deficit irrigation.
Abbreviations: DI, Deficit irrigation; ETc, Crop evapotranspiration; gs, stomatal conductance; Pn, Net photosynthesis; RDI, Regulated deficit irrigation; SLA, Specific leaf area; WUE, Water use efficiency
Grapevine irrigation is becoming an important practice to guarantee wine quality or even plant survival in regions affected by seasonal drought. Nevertheless, irrigation has to be controlled to ...optimise source to sink balance and avoid excessive vigour. The results we present here in two grapevine varieties (Moscatel and Castelão) during 3 years, indicate that we can decrease the amount of water applied by 50% (as in deficit irrigation, DI, and in partial root drying, PRD) in relation to full crop’s evapotranspiration (ETc) full irrigated (FI) vines with no negative effects on production and even get some gains of quality (in the case of PRD). We report that in non‐irrigated and in several cases in PRD vines exhibit higher concentrations of berry skin anthocyanins and total phenols than those presented by DI and FI vines. We showed that these effects on quality were mediated by a reduction in vigour, leading to an increase on light interception in the cluster zone. Because plant water status during most of the dates along the season was not significantly different between PRD and DI, and when different, PRD even exhibited a higher leaf water potential than DI vines, we conclude that growth inhibition in PRD was not a result of a hydraulic control. The gain in crop water use in DI and PRD was accompanied by an increase of the δ13C values in the berries in DI and PRD as compared to FI, suggesting that we can use this methodology to assess the integrated water‐use efficiency over the growing season.
The thermal region of the electromagnetic spectrum might provide valuable information for assessing plant water status. Nevertheless, the plant’s physiology and the scale of measurement, (e.g. sensor ...viewing geometry and the canopy aggregation) are critical for quantifiying and monitoring water stress. This study compares the Crop Water Stress Index (CWSI) of a peach orchard obtained using on-the-ground, and airborne-based canopy temperature (Tc). The temporal evolution of CWSI under mild water stress conditions was assessed for three different irrigation strategies (over-irrigation, OI; farmer irrigation, FI; and non-irrigation, NI). Two aerial campaigns per irrigation season (2017–2018) were performed with an airborne thermal sensor: a first flight under well-watered conditions, and a second flight once mild water stress was developed. At the time of the flights, Tc and net photosynthesis (Pn), stomatal conductance (gs) and stem water potential (Ψs) were measured on the ground with a hand-held thermal camera, a portable gas exchange system and a pressure chamber, respectively. The canopy temperature obtained from the hand-held thermal camera, averaging the sunlit and shaded parts of the canopy, agreed with that derived from the airborne measurements (Y=1.00X; RMSE= 1.97 K). The CWSI values calculated from both approaches detected peach water status under different irrigation strategies. In general, Ψs was better predicted from the aircraft (R² up to 0.72 for CWSI obtained from the aircraft versus R2 =0.51 for Tc ground measurements), whereas the use of ground measurements was preferred for estimating gs and Pn (R² up to 0.73 and 0.74 for Tc ground measurements versus R2 =45 and 0.56 for Tc and CWSI derived from the aircraft). Regardless the approach used for deriving Tc, and due to the consideration of different meteorological conditions (i.e different dates), CWSI provided a better relationship with Ψs than Tc, whereas the latter was more closely related with gs and Pn.
•Peach water status was retrieved from CWSI using ground and airborne thermal images.•Airborne data related midday stem water potential more precisely than ground imagery.•Leaf gas exchange was better correlated to the ground thermal measurements.•Methodologies were developed for combining on-the-ground and airborne thermal data.
•Laurustinus had higher capacity to recover from salinity than euonymus.•Gas exchange recovery in WW laurustinus plants was related to their water status.•At the end of the assay, laurustinus biomass ...was less damaged than that of euonymus.
The scarcity of water has frequently led to saline water being reused for the irrigation of ornamental shrubs. However, before the use of such waters can be expanded, the salt tolerance and other characteristics of the ornamentals involved, need to be considered along with their capacity to recover after salinity exposure. For this reason, Euonymus japonica (euonymus) and Viburnum tinus (laurustinus) plants were submitted for twenty weeks to three irrigation treatments applied at 100% water holding capacity: Control (EC<0.9dSm−1); NaCl solution, NaCl (EC: 4dSm−1); and wastewater, WW (EC: 4dSm−1). This was followed by a recovery period of eight weeks, when all the plants were watered in the control irrigation conditions. The results showed that biomass, leaf number and total leaf area of plants subjected to the saline treatments were lower than in the control at the end of both periods in both species. However, after recovery, only euonymus showed lower growth parameters than those observed in the saline period. The highest Na+ and Cl− concentrations were observed in saline plants at the end of saline period for both species, and were higher in shoots than in roots. The opposite was observed for the K+/Na+ and the Ca2+/Na+ ratios. In Laurustinus, the Ψstem did not diminish in the wastewater-irrigated plants with respect to the control, maintaining osmotic adjustment and a high Ψt, even after recovery, whereas in euonymus this did not occur at the end of recovery period. In both species the Pn and gs were similarly reduced during the saline exposure period. However, the recovery of gas exchange in laurustinus irrigated with wastewater might be closely related to the better water status of these plants. Although the aesthetic value and growth decreased in the plants of both species, the chemical properties of the waters applied had different effects in each case, especially as regards the capacity to recover from salinity. These results underline the importance to studying the physiological mechanisms involved in the recovery of plants.
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