Efficiency of Potassium Utilization in Plants: an Integrative Approach

MORICONI, JORGE I.; SILVA, MARTHA; GUALANO L; SILVA, MAURO; OLIFERUK, SONIA; TRANQUILLI, GABRIELA E.; SANTA MARIA G.E.

Porto Alegre

Conferencia; I Iberoamerican Congress of Plant Physiology; 2022

Sociedade Brasileira Fisiologia Vegetal

Efficiency of Potassium Utilization in Plants: an Integrative ApproachJorge I. Moriconi1, Martha Silva1, Leonardo Gualano1, Mauro Silva2, Sonia Oliferuk3, Gabriela Tranquilli2, Guillermo E. Santa-María1*1-Instituto Tecnológico Chascomús (INTECH), CONICET-UNSAM, Avda. Int. Marino km 8.2, Chascomús, Buenos Aires, Argentina2-Instituto de Recursos Biológicos (IRB), INTA, N. Repetto y Los Reseros, Hurlingham, Buenos Aires, Argentina3-Instituto Patagónico para el Estudio de los Ecosistemas Continentales (IPEEC), CONICET, Bvd. Brown 2915, Puerto Madryn, Chubut, ArgentinaImproving nutrient use efficiency by crops is a major issue for sustainable agriculture in order to reduce the cost and by-side environmental effects associated to the use of fertilizers. This efficiency can be decomposed into the acquisition and the utilization efficiencies. While the first one essentially depends on the interaction between roots and soils, the second one expresses the capacity to generate biomass (or mass of harvestable products) by unit of nutrient incorporated by plants. One of the nutrients usually applied with fertilizers is potassium (K+), which frequently limits crop production and is also involved in many responses of plants to environmental stresses. No surprisingly, there is increasing interest in the genetic improvement of the efficiency of K+ acquisition and utilization in major crops. While the intuitive concept of nutrient utilization efficiency, including that of K+ (KUtE), is very simple, phenotyping for this trait has proven to be a complex issue. In this work, we firstly examine the capacity of different phenotyping procedures to reflect the actual KUtE and suggest that the use of appropriate simulation models may help to progress in this direction. We next consider the suitability of characterizing different sources of germplasm to reveal the variation of KUtE and traits potentially related to it. Complementation of these studies with genotyping analyses may help to dissect the genetic bases involved in determining KUtE. In this regard, we inform the results of a genome wide study, involving a bread wheat collection, performed following a robust phenotyping procedure during the vegetative stage and compare the results obtained for this plant species with those obtained for other cereals. The mechanisms underlying variation in KUtE, including the relevance of signaling networks, are discussed. Particularly, the possibility to use a pyramidal approach based on the use of sodium accumulation is considered in detail.