The Mechanisms Responsible for N Deficiency in Well-Watered Wheat Under Elevated CO2

Jinjie Fan; Moshe Halpern; Yangliu Yu; Qiang Zuo; Jianchu Shi; Yuchuan Fan; Xun Wu; Uri Yermiyahu; Jiandong Sheng; Pingan Jiang; Alon Ben-Gal

doi:10.3389/fpls.2022.801443

The Mechanisms Responsible for N Deficiency in Well-Watered Wheat Under Elevated CO₂

Front Plant Sci. 2022 Feb 16:13:801443. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2022.801443. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Jinjie Fan¹, Moshe Halpern², Yangliu Yu¹, Qiang Zuo¹, Jianchu Shi^{1

3}, Yuchuan Fan¹, Xun Wu¹, Uri Yermiyahu², Jiandong Sheng³, Pingan Jiang³, Alon Ben-Gal²

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Plant-Soil Interactions, Ministry of Education, Key Laboratory of Arable Land Conservation (North China), Ministry of Agriculture, College of Land Science and Technology, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China.
² Soil, Water and Environmental Sciences, Agricultural Research Organization, Gilat Research Center, Mobile Post Negev, Israel.
³ College of Resources and Environment, Xinjiang Agricultural University, Ürümqi, China.

Abstract

Elevated CO₂ concentration [e(CO₂)] often promotes plant growth with a decrease in tissue N concentration. In this study, three experiments, two under hydroponic and one in well-watered soil, including various levels or patterns of CO₂, humidity, and N supply were conducted on wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) to explore the mechanisms of e[CO₂]-induced N deficiency (ECIND). Under hydroponic conditions, N uptake remained constant even as transpiration was limited 40% by raising air relative humidity and only was reduced about 20% by supplying N during nighttime rather than daytime with a reduction of 85% in transpiration. Compared to ambient CO₂ concentration, whether under hydroponic or well-watered soil conditions, and whether transpiration was kept stable or decreased to 12%, e[CO₂] consistently led to more N uptake and higher biomass, while lower N concentration was observed in aboveground organs, especially leaves, as long as N supply was insufficient. These results show that, due to compensation caused by active uptake, N uptake can be uncoupled from water uptake under well-watered conditions, and changes in transpiration therefore do not account for ECIND. Similar or lower tissue ${NO}_{3}^{-}$ -N concentration under e[CO₂] indicated that ${NO}_{3}^{-}$ assimilation was not limited and could therefore also be eliminated as a major cause of ECIND under our conditions. Active uptake has the potential to bridge the gap between N taken up passively and plant demand, but is limited by the energy required to drive it. Compared to ambient CO₂ concentration, the increase in N uptake under e[CO₂] failed to match the increase of carbohydrates, leading to N dilution in plant tissues, the apparent dominant mechanism explaining ECIND. Lower N concentration in leaves rather than roots under e[CO₂] validated that ECIND was at least partially also related to changes in resource allocation, apparently to maintain root uptake activity and prevent more serious N deficiency.

Keywords: elevated CO2 concentration; nitrogen deficiency; nitrogen dilution; nitrogen uptake; photosynthesis; transpiration.