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Simultaneous gains in grain yield and nitrogen efficiency over 70 years of maize genetic improvement
The competing demands of increasing grain yields to feed a growing population and decreasing nitrogen (N) fertilizer use and loss to the environment poses a grand challenge to farmers and society, and necessitates achieving improved N use efficiency (NUE) in cereal crops. Although selection for incr...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group UK
2019
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6591295/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31235885 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-45485-5 |
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author | Mueller, Sarah M. Messina, Carlos D. Vyn, Tony J. |
author_facet | Mueller, Sarah M. Messina, Carlos D. Vyn, Tony J. |
author_sort | Mueller, Sarah M. |
collection | PubMed |
description | The competing demands of increasing grain yields to feed a growing population and decreasing nitrogen (N) fertilizer use and loss to the environment poses a grand challenge to farmers and society, and necessitates achieving improved N use efficiency (NUE) in cereal crops. Although selection for increased yield in maize has improved NUE over time, the present understanding of the physiological determinants of NUE and its key components hampers the design of more effective breeding strategies conducive to accelerating genetic gain for this trait. We show that maize NUE gains have been supported by more efficient allocation of N among plant organs during the grain filling period. Comparing seven maize hybrids commercialized between 1946 and 2015 from a single seed company in multiple N fertilizer treatments, we demonstrate that modern hybrids produced more grain per unit of accumulated N by more efficiently remobilizing N stored in stems than in leaves to support kernel growth. Increases in N fertilizer recovery and N harvest index at maturity were mirrored by a steady decrease in stem N allocation in this era study. These insights can inform future breeding strategies for continued NUE gains through improved conversion efficiency of accumulated plant N into grain yield. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6591295 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2019 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group UK |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-65912952019-07-02 Simultaneous gains in grain yield and nitrogen efficiency over 70 years of maize genetic improvement Mueller, Sarah M. Messina, Carlos D. Vyn, Tony J. Sci Rep Article The competing demands of increasing grain yields to feed a growing population and decreasing nitrogen (N) fertilizer use and loss to the environment poses a grand challenge to farmers and society, and necessitates achieving improved N use efficiency (NUE) in cereal crops. Although selection for increased yield in maize has improved NUE over time, the present understanding of the physiological determinants of NUE and its key components hampers the design of more effective breeding strategies conducive to accelerating genetic gain for this trait. We show that maize NUE gains have been supported by more efficient allocation of N among plant organs during the grain filling period. Comparing seven maize hybrids commercialized between 1946 and 2015 from a single seed company in multiple N fertilizer treatments, we demonstrate that modern hybrids produced more grain per unit of accumulated N by more efficiently remobilizing N stored in stems than in leaves to support kernel growth. Increases in N fertilizer recovery and N harvest index at maturity were mirrored by a steady decrease in stem N allocation in this era study. These insights can inform future breeding strategies for continued NUE gains through improved conversion efficiency of accumulated plant N into grain yield. Nature Publishing Group UK 2019-06-24 /pmc/articles/PMC6591295/ /pubmed/31235885 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-45485-5 Text en © The Author(s) 2019 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
spellingShingle | Article Mueller, Sarah M. Messina, Carlos D. Vyn, Tony J. Simultaneous gains in grain yield and nitrogen efficiency over 70 years of maize genetic improvement |
title | Simultaneous gains in grain yield and nitrogen efficiency over 70 years of maize genetic improvement |
title_full | Simultaneous gains in grain yield and nitrogen efficiency over 70 years of maize genetic improvement |
title_fullStr | Simultaneous gains in grain yield and nitrogen efficiency over 70 years of maize genetic improvement |
title_full_unstemmed | Simultaneous gains in grain yield and nitrogen efficiency over 70 years of maize genetic improvement |
title_short | Simultaneous gains in grain yield and nitrogen efficiency over 70 years of maize genetic improvement |
title_sort | simultaneous gains in grain yield and nitrogen efficiency over 70 years of maize genetic improvement |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6591295/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31235885 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-45485-5 |
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