Abstract
Plants react to the environment and to management interventions by undergoing architectural and structural modifications. A field trial was conducted in China in 2016 to study the effects of the plant population on morphological development of the maize canopy. The main objectives of the current study were (i) to characterize the effects of increased plant density on canopy morphology and stalk lodging and (ii) to explore the relationships between organ morphology and stalk lodging. The field experiment was composed of five plant densities (4.5, 6, 7.5, 9, and 15 plants m−2) of three cultivars: Zhengdan 958 (lodging-resistant cultivar), Longping 206 and Jinqiu 119 (lodging-susceptible cultivars). In response to plant densities of all the three cultivars, the lamina and sheath lengths increased in lower phytomers but decreased in upper phytomers. The lamina width and internode diameter decreased for all phytomers in response to plant densities for all the cultivars. The correlation between organ morphology, plant density and stalk lodging was linear. Data obtained from characterization used in this study (that is, canopy morphology, correlation of organ morphology with stalk lodging traits in response to various plant densities for different cultivars, etc.) will be useful in future modeling studies to predict the morphology characteristics of the canopy affected by interplant competition and stalk lodging.
Highlights
With an increase in population, food and energy crises have become the main global challenges
The objectives of this paper are to (i) evaluate and characterize the effects of plant density on canopy morphology and stalk lodging for different cultivars and (ii) derive equations that may be used in a functional-structural plant model of maize (e.g., ADELmaize) (Fournier and Andrieu, 1999) accounting for interplant competition and lodging
None of the phytomers responded when the plant density increased from PD7.5 to PD9 and PD15, for all cultivars, due to mild competition
Summary
With an increase in population, food and energy crises have become the main global challenges. High plant density is one of the main agronomic practices required to achieve maximum yields in modern cropping systems (Yang et al, 2004; Sher et al, 2017; Xu C. et al, 2017; Xu W. et al, 2017; Zheng et al, 2017). Increasing plant density enhances intra-plant competition, decreases the growth of single-plant crops and accelerates the abortion of young kernels due to limited carbon and nitrogen supply to the ear (Edmeades et al, 2000; Yan et al, 2010). Understanding the growth response to plant population density (PPD) is of great importance, in order to determine the optimal sowing density, kernel abortion and stalk lodging
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