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Shade Delayed Flowering Phenology and Decreased Reproductive Growth of Medicago sativa L.
Alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) is an important forage in intercropping or rotation ecosystem, and shading is the principal limiting factor for its growth under the crop or forest. Agronomic studies showed that shading would systematically reduce the biomass of alfalfa. However, little is known about t...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9203126/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35720597 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2022.835380 |
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author | Qin, Fengfei Shen, Yixin Li, Zhihua Qu, Hui Feng, Jinxia Kong, Lingna Teri, Gele Luan, Haoming Cao, Zhiling |
author_facet | Qin, Fengfei Shen, Yixin Li, Zhihua Qu, Hui Feng, Jinxia Kong, Lingna Teri, Gele Luan, Haoming Cao, Zhiling |
author_sort | Qin, Fengfei |
collection | PubMed |
description | Alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) is an important forage in intercropping or rotation ecosystem, and shading is the principal limiting factor for its growth under the crop or forest. Agronomic studies showed that shading would systematically reduce the biomass of alfalfa. However, little is known about the reproduction of alfalfa under shading conditions. In order to study the effect of shading on the reproductive characteristics of alfalfa, two alfalfa cultivars (“Victoria” and “Eureka”) were used to study the effect of shading levels (full light, 56.4% shade, and 78.7% shade) on alfalfa flowering phenology, pollen viability, stigma receptivity, and seed quality. Results showed that shading delayed flowering phenology, shortened the flowering stage, faded the flower colors, and significantly reduced pollen viability, stigma receptivity, the number of flowers, quantity, and quality of seeds. Under shading conditions, seed yield per plant was obviously positively correlated with germination potential, germination rate, pollen viability, and 1,000-seed weight. The number of flower buds, pollen viability, 1,000-seed weight, and germination rate had the greatest positive direct impact on seed yield per plant. Our findings suggested that delayed flowering and reducing reproduction growth were important strategies for alfalfa to cope with shading and pollen viability was the key bottleneck for the success of alfalfa reproduction under shading. However, given that alfalfa is a perennial vegetative-harvest forage, delaying flowering in a weak light environment was beneficial to maintain the high aboveground biomass of alfalfa. Therefore, this should be taken into account when breeding alfalfa cultivars suitable for intercropping. Future research should further reveal the genetic and molecular mechanism of delayed flowering regulating the accumulation and distribution of assimilates between vegetative and reproductive organs of alfalfa under shading, so as to provide a theoretical basis for breeding of shade-tolerant alfalfa cultivars. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9203126 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-92031262022-06-17 Shade Delayed Flowering Phenology and Decreased Reproductive Growth of Medicago sativa L. Qin, Fengfei Shen, Yixin Li, Zhihua Qu, Hui Feng, Jinxia Kong, Lingna Teri, Gele Luan, Haoming Cao, Zhiling Front Plant Sci Plant Science Alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) is an important forage in intercropping or rotation ecosystem, and shading is the principal limiting factor for its growth under the crop or forest. Agronomic studies showed that shading would systematically reduce the biomass of alfalfa. However, little is known about the reproduction of alfalfa under shading conditions. In order to study the effect of shading on the reproductive characteristics of alfalfa, two alfalfa cultivars (“Victoria” and “Eureka”) were used to study the effect of shading levels (full light, 56.4% shade, and 78.7% shade) on alfalfa flowering phenology, pollen viability, stigma receptivity, and seed quality. Results showed that shading delayed flowering phenology, shortened the flowering stage, faded the flower colors, and significantly reduced pollen viability, stigma receptivity, the number of flowers, quantity, and quality of seeds. Under shading conditions, seed yield per plant was obviously positively correlated with germination potential, germination rate, pollen viability, and 1,000-seed weight. The number of flower buds, pollen viability, 1,000-seed weight, and germination rate had the greatest positive direct impact on seed yield per plant. Our findings suggested that delayed flowering and reducing reproduction growth were important strategies for alfalfa to cope with shading and pollen viability was the key bottleneck for the success of alfalfa reproduction under shading. However, given that alfalfa is a perennial vegetative-harvest forage, delaying flowering in a weak light environment was beneficial to maintain the high aboveground biomass of alfalfa. Therefore, this should be taken into account when breeding alfalfa cultivars suitable for intercropping. Future research should further reveal the genetic and molecular mechanism of delayed flowering regulating the accumulation and distribution of assimilates between vegetative and reproductive organs of alfalfa under shading, so as to provide a theoretical basis for breeding of shade-tolerant alfalfa cultivars. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-06-02 /pmc/articles/PMC9203126/ /pubmed/35720597 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2022.835380 Text en Copyright © 2022 Qin, Shen, Li, Qu, Feng, Kong, Teri, Luan and Cao. https://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 Qin, Fengfei Shen, Yixin Li, Zhihua Qu, Hui Feng, Jinxia Kong, Lingna Teri, Gele Luan, Haoming Cao, Zhiling Shade Delayed Flowering Phenology and Decreased Reproductive Growth of Medicago sativa L. |
title | Shade Delayed Flowering Phenology and Decreased Reproductive Growth of Medicago sativa L. |
title_full | Shade Delayed Flowering Phenology and Decreased Reproductive Growth of Medicago sativa L. |
title_fullStr | Shade Delayed Flowering Phenology and Decreased Reproductive Growth of Medicago sativa L. |
title_full_unstemmed | Shade Delayed Flowering Phenology and Decreased Reproductive Growth of Medicago sativa L. |
title_short | Shade Delayed Flowering Phenology and Decreased Reproductive Growth of Medicago sativa L. |
title_sort | shade delayed flowering phenology and decreased reproductive growth of medicago sativa l. |
topic | Plant Science |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9203126/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35720597 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2022.835380 |
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