Frontiers of Agricultural Science and Engineering (Sep 2022)

ROLE OF NITROGEN SENSING AND ITS INTEGRATIVE SIGNALING PATHWAYS IN SHAPING ROOT SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE

  • Hui LIU, Qian LIU, Xiuhua GAO, Xiangdong FU

DOI
https://doi.org/10.15302/J-FASE-2022441
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 9, no. 3
pp. 316 – 332

Abstract

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<List> <ListItem><ItemContent><p>● The Green Revolution broadened the trade-off between yield and nitrogen-use efficiency.</p></ItemContent></ListItem> <ListItem><ItemContent><p>● Root developmental and metabolic adaptations to nitrogen availability.</p></ItemContent></ListItem> <ListItem><ItemContent><p>● Mechanisms of nitrogen uptake and assimilation have been extensively studied.</p></ItemContent></ListItem> <ListItem><ItemContent><p>● Modulating plant growth-metabolic coordination improves nitrogen-use efficiency in crops.</p></ItemContent></ListItem></List> </p> <p>The Green Revolution of the 1960s boosted crop yields in part through widespread production of semidwarf plant cultivars and extensive use of mineral fertilizers. The beneficial semidwarfism of cereal Green Revolution cultivars is due to the accumulation of plant growth-repressing DELLA proteins, which increases lodging resistance but requires a high-nitrogen fertilizer to obtain high yield. Given that environmentally degrading fertilizer use underpins current worldwide crop production, future agricultural sustainability needs a sustainable Green Revolution through reducing N fertilizer use while boosting grain yield above what is currently achievable. Despite a great deal of research efforts, only a few genes have been demonstrated to improve N-use efficiency in crops. The molecular mechanisms underlying the coordination between plant growth and N metabolism is still not fully understood, thus preventing significant improvement. Recent advances of how plants sense, capture and respond to varying N supply in model plants have shed light on how to improve sustainable productivity in agriculture. This review focuses on the current understanding of root developmental and metabolic adaptations to N availability, and discuss the potential approaches to improve N-use efficiency in high-yielding cereal crops.

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