Architectural Response of Wheat Cultivars to Row Spacing Reveals Altered Perception of Plant Density

Achieving novel improvements in crop management may require changing interrow distance in cultivated fields. Such changes would benefit from a better understanding of plant responses to the spatial heterogeneity in their environment. Our work investigates the architectural plasticity of wheat plants...

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Autores principales: Abichou, Mariem, de Solan, Benoit, Andrieu, Bruno
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6692534/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31447868
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2019.00999
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author Abichou, Mariem
de Solan, Benoit
Andrieu, Bruno
author_facet Abichou, Mariem
de Solan, Benoit
Andrieu, Bruno
author_sort Abichou, Mariem
collection PubMed
description Achieving novel improvements in crop management may require changing interrow distance in cultivated fields. Such changes would benefit from a better understanding of plant responses to the spatial heterogeneity in their environment. Our work investigates the architectural plasticity of wheat plants in response to increasing row spacing and evaluates the hypothesis of a foraging behavior in response to neighboring plants. A field experiment was conducted with five commercial winter wheat cultivars possessing unique architectures, grown under narrow (NI, 17.5 cm) or wide interrows (WI, 35 cm) at the same population density (170 seeds/m(2)). We characterized the development (leaf emergence, tillering), the morphology (dimension of organs, leaf area index), and the geometry (ground cover, leaf angle, organ spreading, and orientation). All cultivars showed a lower number of emerged tillers in WI compared to NI, which was later partly compensated by lower tiller mortality. Besides, the upper leaf blades were larger in WI. Finally the leaf area index at flowering showed little difference between WI and NI treatments. The rate of leaf emergence and the final leaf number were higher in WI compared to NI, except for one cultivar. Around the start of stem elongation, pseudo-stems were more erect in WI, while around the time of flowering, stems were more inclined and leaves were more planophile. Cultivars differed in their degrees of responses, with one appearing to prospect more specifically within the interrow space in WI treatment. Altogether, our results suggest that altering interrow distance leads to changes in the perceived extent of competition by plants, with responses first mimicking the effect of a higher plant density and later the effect of a lower plant density. Only one cultivar showed responses that suggested a perception of the heterogeneity of the environment. These findings improve our understanding of plant responses to spatial heterogeneity and provide novel information to simulate light capture in plant 3D models, depending on cultivar behavior.
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spelling pubmed-66925342019-08-23 Architectural Response of Wheat Cultivars to Row Spacing Reveals Altered Perception of Plant Density Abichou, Mariem de Solan, Benoit Andrieu, Bruno Front Plant Sci Plant Science Achieving novel improvements in crop management may require changing interrow distance in cultivated fields. Such changes would benefit from a better understanding of plant responses to the spatial heterogeneity in their environment. Our work investigates the architectural plasticity of wheat plants in response to increasing row spacing and evaluates the hypothesis of a foraging behavior in response to neighboring plants. A field experiment was conducted with five commercial winter wheat cultivars possessing unique architectures, grown under narrow (NI, 17.5 cm) or wide interrows (WI, 35 cm) at the same population density (170 seeds/m(2)). We characterized the development (leaf emergence, tillering), the morphology (dimension of organs, leaf area index), and the geometry (ground cover, leaf angle, organ spreading, and orientation). All cultivars showed a lower number of emerged tillers in WI compared to NI, which was later partly compensated by lower tiller mortality. Besides, the upper leaf blades were larger in WI. Finally the leaf area index at flowering showed little difference between WI and NI treatments. The rate of leaf emergence and the final leaf number were higher in WI compared to NI, except for one cultivar. Around the start of stem elongation, pseudo-stems were more erect in WI, while around the time of flowering, stems were more inclined and leaves were more planophile. Cultivars differed in their degrees of responses, with one appearing to prospect more specifically within the interrow space in WI treatment. Altogether, our results suggest that altering interrow distance leads to changes in the perceived extent of competition by plants, with responses first mimicking the effect of a higher plant density and later the effect of a lower plant density. Only one cultivar showed responses that suggested a perception of the heterogeneity of the environment. These findings improve our understanding of plant responses to spatial heterogeneity and provide novel information to simulate light capture in plant 3D models, depending on cultivar behavior. Frontiers Media S.A. 2019-08-07 /pmc/articles/PMC6692534/ /pubmed/31447868 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2019.00999 Text en Copyright © 2019 Abichou, de Solan and Andrieu. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Plant Science
Abichou, Mariem
de Solan, Benoit
Andrieu, Bruno
Architectural Response of Wheat Cultivars to Row Spacing Reveals Altered Perception of Plant Density
title Architectural Response of Wheat Cultivars to Row Spacing Reveals Altered Perception of Plant Density
title_full Architectural Response of Wheat Cultivars to Row Spacing Reveals Altered Perception of Plant Density
title_fullStr Architectural Response of Wheat Cultivars to Row Spacing Reveals Altered Perception of Plant Density
title_full_unstemmed Architectural Response of Wheat Cultivars to Row Spacing Reveals Altered Perception of Plant Density
title_short Architectural Response of Wheat Cultivars to Row Spacing Reveals Altered Perception of Plant Density
title_sort architectural response of wheat cultivars to row spacing reveals altered perception of plant density
topic Plant Science
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6692534/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31447868
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2019.00999
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