Journal
JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL BOTANY
Volume 67, Issue 12, Pages 3763-3775Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1093/jxb/erw133
Keywords
Acquisition; architecture; corn; depletion; nitrogen; plant; rhizosphere; soil
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Funding
- Agriculture and Food Research Initiative of the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture [2014-67013-2157]
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Increasing maize nitrogen acquisition efficiency is a major goal for the 21st century. Nitrate uptake kinetics (NUK) are defined by I-max and K-m, which denote the maximum uptake rate and the affinity of transporters, respectively. Because NUK have been studied predominantly at the molecular and whole-root system levels, little is known about the functional importance of NUK variation within root systems. A novel method was created to measure NUK of root segments that demonstrated variation in NUK among root classes (seminal, lateral, crown, and brace). I-max varied among root class, plant age, and nitrate deprivation combinations, but was most affected by plant age, which increased I-max, and nitrate deprivation time, which decreased I-max. K-m was greatest for crown roots. The functional-structural simulation SimRoot was used for sensitivity analysis of plant growth to root segment I-max and K-m, as well as to test interactions of I-max with root system architectural phenes. Simulated plant growth was more sensitive to I-max than K-m, and reached an asymptote near the maximum I-max observed in the empirical studies. Increasing the I-max of lateral roots had the largest effect on shoot growth. Additive effects of I-max and architectural phenes on nitrate uptake were observed. Empirically, only lateral root tips aged 20 d operated at the maximum I-max, and simulations demonstrated that increasing all seminal and lateral classes to this maximum rate could increase plant growth by as much as 26%. Therefore, optimizing I-max for all maize root classes merits attention as a promising breeding goal.
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