Abstract
Field pea is important to agriculture as a nutritionally dense legume, able to fix nitrogen from the atmosphere and supply it back to the soil. However, field pea requires more phosphorus (P) than other crops. Identifying field pea cultivars with high phosphorus use efficiency (PUE) is highly desirable for organic pulse crop biofortification. This study identified field pea accessions with high PUE by determining (1) the variation in P remobilization rate, (2) correlations between P and phytic acid (PA), and (3) broad-sense heritability estimates of P concentrations. Fifty field pea accessions were grown in a completely randomized design in a greenhouse with two replicates under normal (7551 ppm) and reduced (4459 ppm) P fertilizer conditions and harvested at two time points (mid-pod and full-pod). P concentrations ranged from 332 to 9520 ppm under normal P and from 83 to 8473 ppm under reduced P conditions across all tissues and both time points. Field pea accessions showed variation in remobilization rates, with PI 125840 and PI 137119 increasing remobilization of P under normal P conditions. Field pea accessions PI 411142 and PI 413683 increased P remobilization under the reduced P treatment. No correlation was evident between tissue P concentration and seed PA concentration (8–61 ppm). Finally, seed P concentration under limited P conditions was highly heritable (H2 = 0.85), as was mid-pod lower leaf P concentrations under normal P conditions (H2 = 0.81). In conclusion, breeding for PUE in field pea is possible by selecting for higher P remobilization accessions in low P soils with genetic and location sourcing.
Highlights
The demand for organically produced crops is on the rise, with global retail sales reaching $81.6 billion in 2015; North America has the largest organic food market valued at $43.3 billion in 20171
Once P i is stored in the seed, it is often converted to phytic acid (PA), which acts as an antinutrient by binding to micronutrients such as Fe and Zn, decreasing their bioavailability
Phosphorus use efficiency (PUE) is not well understood, as most research pertains to analyzing phosphorus acquisition efficiency (PAE), which focuses on identifying plants capable of greater P acquisition under P deficient conditions, commonly through alterations in root exudation and root system architecture
Summary
The demand for organically produced crops is on the rise, with global retail sales reaching $81.6 billion in 2015; North America has the largest organic food market valued at $43.3 billion in 20171. Phosphorus use efficiency (PUE) is the amount of P recovered from the soil that is translocated, remobilized, and utilized for plant physiological processes. PUE is not well understood, as most research pertains to analyzing phosphorus acquisition efficiency (PAE), which focuses on identifying plants capable of greater P acquisition under P deficient conditions, commonly through alterations in root exudation and root system architecture. Remobilization of P from mature tissues is the primary source of P for reproductive tissues, so field pea with an increased capacity to remobilize P from mature tissues should maintain yield and seed quality[12,27] It remains to be investigated whether increasing P concentration in the seed causes an increase in PA, which could negate biofortification potential. We tested our hypothesis by considering both normal (treatment 1) and reduced (treatment 2) P fertilizer conditions and (1) investigating variation in tissue P concentrations and remobilization rates, (2) quantifying the relationship between PA and P concentrations for biofortification purposes, and (3) measuring the heritability of P concentrations across tissues to determine the feasibility of breeding for PUE in field pea
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