This title appears in the Scientific Report :
2021
Please use the identifier:
http://hdl.handle.net/2128/28629 in citations.
Root contact and plasticity facilitate nitrogen fixation and transfer in intercrops
Root contact and plasticity facilitate nitrogen fixation and transfer in intercrops
Cereal/legume intercropping can achieve overyielding and higher N use efficiency through enhanced nitrogen (N) fixation by legumes and nitrogen transfer to cereals. However, the extent to which root morphology contributes to N fixation and transfer is unclear. We conducted a two-factorial greenhouse...
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Personal Name(s): | Zheng, Congcong |
---|---|
Shao, Zeqiang (Corresponding author) / Postma, Johannes A / Gao, Qiang / Gao, Yingzhi | |
Contributing Institute: |
Pflanzenwissenschaften; IBG-2 |
Imprint: |
2021
|
Conference: | The 11th Symposium of the International Society of Root Research and Rooting2021, Missouri (USA), 2021-05-24 - 2021-05-28 |
Document Type: |
Poster |
Research Program: |
Biological and environmental resources for sustainable use |
Link: |
OpenAccess |
Publikationsportal JuSER |
Cereal/legume intercropping can achieve overyielding and higher N use efficiency through enhanced nitrogen (N) fixation by legumes and nitrogen transfer to cereals. However, the extent to which root morphology contributes to N fixation and transfer is unclear. We conducted a two-factorial greenhouse experiment to quantify the N fixation, transfer and root morphology characteristics of the maize/alfalfa intercropping system in two consecutive years using the 15N-urea leaf labelling method, and combining two N levels with three root barriers. Irrespective of the N application level, compared with plastic sheet separation (PSS), no separation (NS) and nylon mesh separation (NNS) significantly increased the total biomass (36%) and total N content (28%), while the N fixation rate also sharply increased by 75 to 134%, and the amount of N transferred with no root barrier was 1.24–1.42 times greater than that with a mesh barrier. N application could inhibit N fixation and transfer in a maize/alfalfa intercropping system. Redundancy analysis (RDA) showed that the crown root dry weight (CRDW) of maize and lateral root number (LRN) of alfalfa showed the strongest associations with N fixation and transfer. Results highlight that in maize/alfalfa intercropping systems, root contact is important because it enhanced N fixation and transfer. Root contact is strongly influenced by root morphology plasticity responses to competition and thereby achieving a greater yield. |