scholarly journals Crop Germplasm: Molecular and Physiological Perspective Towards Achieving Global Crop Sustainability

Author(s):  
Raju Mondal ◽  
Amit Kumar

Germplasm is a long-term resource management mission and investment for civilization. For both food and nutritional health, the present changing environmental scenario has become an urgent universal concern. Multiple excellent studies have been previously performed, although the advancement and innovation of practices will require the exploration of the potentiality of crop germplasm. In this study, we emphasized (i) germplasm activates, current challenges and ongoing trends of the crop germplasm, and (ii) how the system biology will be helpful to understand the complex traits such as water use efficiency (WUE), and nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) to mitigate challenges for sustainable development under growing food requirement and climate change conditions. We focused on a vision for transforming PGR into a bio-digital resource system, for the development of climate-smart crops for sustainable food production. Moreover, this review attempted to address current challenges, research gaps and describe the advanced integrated strategies that could provide a platform for future crop improvement research.

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Narendra Sharma ◽  
Vimlendu Bhushan Sinha ◽  
N. Arun Prem Kumar ◽  
Desiraju Subrahmanyam ◽  
C. N. Neeraja ◽  
...  

Crop improvement for Nitrogen Use Efficiency (NUE) requires a well-defined phenotype and genotype, especially for different N-forms. As N-supply enhances growth, we comprehensively evaluated 25 commonly measured phenotypic parameters for N response using 4 N treatments in six indica rice genotypes. For this, 32 replicate potted plants were grown in the green-house on nutrient-depleted sand. They were fertilized to saturation with media containing either nitrate or urea as the sole N source at normal (15 mM N) or low level (1.5 mM N). The variation in N-response among genotypes differed by N form/dose and increased developmentally from vegetative to reproductive parameters. This indicates survival adaptation by reinforcing variation in every generation. Principal component analysis segregated vegetative parameters from reproduction and germination. Analysis of variance revealed that relative to low level, normal N facilitated germination, flowering and vegetative growth but limited yield and NUE. Network analysis for the most connected parameters, their correlation with yield and NUE, ranking by Feature selection and validation by Partial least square discriminant analysis enabled shortlisting of eight parameters for NUE phenotype. It constitutes germination and flowering, shoot/root length and biomass parameters, six of which were common to nitrate and urea. Field-validation confirmed the NUE differences between two genotypes chosen phenotypically. The correspondence between multiple approaches in shortlisting parameters for NUE makes it a novel and robust phenotyping methodology of relevance to other plants, nutrients or other complex traits. Thirty-Four N-responsive genes associated with the phenotype have also been identified for genotypic characterization of NUE.


2018 ◽  
Vol 102 (4) ◽  
pp. 8-10
Author(s):  
Fernando García ◽  
Andrés Grasso ◽  
María González Sanjuan ◽  
Adrián Correndo ◽  
Fernando Salvagiotti

Trends over the past 25 years indicate that Argentina’s growth in its grain crop productivity has largely been supported by the depletion of the extensive fertility of its Pampean soils. Long-term research provides insight into sustainable nutrient management strategies ready for wide-scale adoption.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xin Jia ◽  
Ke Mao ◽  
Ping Wang ◽  
Yu Wang ◽  
Xumei Jia ◽  
...  

AbstractWater deficit is one of the major limiting factors for apple (Malus domestica) production on the Loess Plateau, a major apple cultivation area in China. The identification of genes related to the regulation of water use efficiency (WUE) is a crucial aspect of crop breeding programs. As a conserved degradation and recycling mechanism in eukaryotes, autophagy has been reported to participate in various stress responses. However, the relationship between autophagy and WUE regulation has not been explored. We have shown that a crucial autophagy protein in apple, MdATG8i, plays a role in improving salt tolerance. Here, we explored its biological function in response to long-term moderate drought stress. The results showed that MdATG8i-overexpressing (MdATG8i-OE) apple plants exhibited higher WUE than wild-type (WT) plants under long-term moderate drought conditions. Plant WUE can be increased by improving photosynthetic efficiency. Osmoregulation plays a critical role in plant stress resistance and adaptation. Under long-term drought conditions, the photosynthetic capacity and accumulation of sugar and amino acids were higher in MdATG8i-OE plants than in WT plants. The increased photosynthetic capacity in the OE plants could be attributed to their ability to maintain optimal stomatal aperture, organized chloroplasts, and strong antioxidant activity. MdATG8i overexpression also promoted autophagic activity, which was likely related to the changes described above. In summary, our results demonstrate that MdATG8i-OE apple lines exhibited higher WUE than WT under long-term moderate drought conditions because they maintained robust photosynthesis, effective osmotic adjustment processes, and strong autophagic activity.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Min Huang ◽  
Zui Tao ◽  
Tao Lei ◽  
Fangbo Cao ◽  
Jiana Chen ◽  
...  

Summary The development of high-yielding, short-duration super-rice hybrids is important for ensuring food security in China where multiple cropping is widely practiced and large-scale farming has gradually emerged. In this study, field experiments were conducted over 3 years to identify the yield formation characteristics in the shorter-duration (∼120 days) super-rice hybrid ‘Guiliangyou 2’ (G2) by comparing it with the longer-duration (∼130 days) super-rice hybrid ‘Y-liangyou 1’ (Y1). The results showed that G2 had a shorter pre-heading growth duration and consequently a shorter total growth duration compared to Y1. Compared to Y1, G2 had lower total biomass production that resulted from lower daily solar radiation, apparent radiation use efficiency (RUE), crop growth rate (CGR), and biomass production during the pre-heading period, but the grain yield was not significantly lower than that of Y1 because it was compensated for by the higher harvest index that resulted from slower leaf senescence (i.e., slower decline in leaf area index during the post-heading period) and higher RUE, CGR, and biomass production during the post-heading period. Our findings suggest that it is feasible to reduce the dependence of yield formation on growth duration to a certain extent in rice by increasing the use efficiency of solar radiation through crop improvement and also highlight the need for a greater fundamental understanding of the physiological processes involved in the higher use efficiency of solar radiation in super-rice hybrids.


2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 328-332
Author(s):  
J. Zhang ◽  
Y. Miao ◽  
W.D. Batchelor

Over-application of nitrogen (N) in rice (Oryza sativaL.) production in China is common, leading to low N use efficiency (NUE) and high environmental risks. The objective of this work was to evaluate the ability of the CERES-Rice crop growth model to simulate N response in the cool climate of Northeast China, with the long term goal of using the model to develop optimum N management recommendations. Nitrogen experiments were conducted from 2011–2015 in Jiansanjiang, Heilongjiang Province in Northeast China. The CERES-Rice model was calibrated for 2014 and 2015 and evaluated for 2011 and 2013 experiments. Overall, the model gave good estimations of yield across N rates for the calibration years (R2=0.89) and evaluation years (R2=0.73). The calibrated model was then run using weather data from 2001–2015 for 20 different N rates to determine the N rate that maximized the long term marginal net return (MNR) for different N prices. The model results indicated that the optimum mean N rate was 120–130 kg N ha–1, but that the simulated optimum N rate varied each year, ranging from 100 to 200 kg N ha–1. Results of this study indicated that the CERES-Rice model was able to simulate cool season rice growth and provide estimates of optimum regional N rates that were consistent with field observations for the area.


2014 ◽  
Vol 94 (6) ◽  
pp. 1009-1012 ◽  
Author(s):  
David R. Guevara ◽  
Yong-Mei Bi ◽  
Steven J. Rothstein

Guevara, D. R., Bi, Y.-M. and Rothstein, S. J. 2014. Identification of regulatory genes to improve nitrogen use efficiency. Can. J. Plant Sci. 94: 1009–1012. Crop production on soils containing sub-optimal levels of nitrogen (N) severely compromises yield potential. The development of crop varieties displaying high N use efficiency (NUE) is necessary in order to optimize N fertilizer use, and reduce the environmental damage caused by the current excessive application of N in agricultural areas. Genome-wide microarray analysis of rice plants grown under N-limiting environments was performed to identify NUE candidate genes. An early nodulin gene, OsENOD93-1, was strongly up-regulated during plant growth under low N. A constitutive Ubiquitin promoter was used to drive the expression of the OsENOD93-1 gene in transgenic plants to determine the importance of OsENOD93-1 for rice NUE. Transgenic rice plants over-expressing the OsENOD93-1 gene achieved ∼23% and 16% more yield and biomass, respectively, compared with wild-type plants when grown under N-limitation conditions. OsENOD93-1-OX transgenic plants accumulated a higher amount of total amino acids in the roots and xylem sap under N stress, suggesting that OsENOD93-1 plays a role in the transportation of amino acids. Taken together, we demonstrate that an effective way to identify NUE gene candidates involves both transcriptional profiling coupled with a transgenic validation approach to improve complex traits such as NUE in important crops.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pablo Affortit ◽  
Branly Effa Effa ◽  
Mame Sokhatil Ndoye ◽  
Daniel Moukouanga ◽  
Nathalie Luchaire ◽  
...  

Because water availability is the most important environmental factor limiting crop production, improving water use efficiency, the amount of carbon fixed per water used, is a major target for crop improvement. In rice, the genetic bases of transpiration efficiency, the derivation of water use efficiency at the whole-plant scale, and its putative component trait transpiration restriction under high evaporative demand, remain unknown. These traits were measured in a panel of 147 African rice Oryza glaberrima genotypes, known as potential sources of tolerance genes to biotic and abiotic stresses. Our results reveal that higher transpiration efficiency is associated with transpiration restriction in African rice. Detailed measurements in a subset of highly differentiated genotypes confirmed these associations and suggested that the root to shoot ratio played an important role in transpiration restriction. Genome wide association studies identified marker-trait associations for transpiration response to evaporative demand, transpiration efficiency and its residuals, that links to genes involved in water transport and cell wall patterning. Our data suggest that root shoot partitioning is an important component of transpiration restriction that has a positive effect on transpiration efficiency in African rice. Both traits are heritable and define targets for breeding rice with improved water use strategies.


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