NUTRIENT UTILIZATION EFFICIENCY: SOME HEAD PAINS AND PHENOTYPING EXAMPLES FOR POTASSIUM IN WHEAT

JORGE I.MORICONI; MARTHA SILVA; SONIA OLIFERUK; GUILLERMO E. SANTA MARÍA

Corrientes

Congreso; XXXI Reunión Argentina de Fisiología Vegetal; 2016

SAFV

Maintenance of crop yield requires themassive use of fertilizers which provide essential macronutrients (such as N, P and K). Thereis a wide consensus about the necessity of improving the efficiencies of acquisition (ANE) and utilization(NUE) of these nutrients. The aim of phenotyping plants for high NUE assumes thepossibility to estimate it unequivocally. While NUE is defined as the amount of biomass producedby the nutrient content in plant tissues, the estimation criterions for it have beenrecently questioned. For K, the use of theoretical models allowed to advance in the comprehension ofthe effect of different sources of variation on NUE as well as the capacity of differentindicators to reflect the actual NUE. In this work it is proposed a methodology for NUE phenotyping,involving: i) the correct selection of the population to be evaluated, ii) culture of plants at a lowor nil external K-concentration; and iii) the use of indicators of efficiency validated throughthe use of simulation models. In addition, we introduce some results obtained for wheat withbi-parental populations and nulli-tetrasomic lines.