Nitrogen availability determines the vertical patterns of accumulation, partitioning, and reallocation of dry matter and nitrogen in maize

作者：Panpan Fan, Bo Ming, Jochem B. Evers, Yaoyao Li, Shaokun Li, Ruizhi Xie, Niels P. R. Anten · 发表于：Field Crops Research · 年份：2023 · DOI：10.1016/j.fcr.2023.108927 · 被引用次数：48 · 研究领域：Crop Yield and Soil Fertility、Plant nutrient uptake and metabolism、Wheat and Barley Genetics and Pathology

Context or problem The reallocation of dry matter (DM) and nitrogen (N) from vegetative tissues to the grains are critical for both yield quantity and protein content of cereal crops . However, it is unclear to which extent the dynamics in DM and N reallocation depend on N availability, and how individual leaves within the maize canopy respond to different N availabilities in terms of these processes. Objective or research question This study aimed to quantify DM and N accumulation, partitioning, and reallocation from vegetative to reproductive parts in maize in relation to soil N availability. Methods A long-term N fertilizer trial was conducted in Jilin province, Northeast China, growing maize at three N fertilizer levels (low N availability, N0; intermediate N availability, N1; and high N availability, N2). The accumulation, partitioning, and reallocation of DM and N were quantified at the whole-plant, organs, and single-leaf scales in 2015 and 2016. Results Although both post-silking DM accumulation and post-silking N uptake increased in response to higher N availability, 8.3–38.8% of grain N still needed to be reallocated from vegetative organs with a larger fraction coming from leaves (10.5 – 36.5%) than from stems (4.4 – 11.6%). This dependency of grain N on N reallocation from vegetative parts increased at lower soil N availability. Furthermore, the vertical patterns of reallocated leaf DM and reallocated leaf N changed with N availabilities. While in general leaves i...