Phosphorus efficiency of wheat and sugar beet seedlings grown in soils with mainly calcium, or iron and aluminium phosphate

Abstract

Phosphorus is often limiting crop growth in soils low in P supplying capacity. The objective of this study was to investigate whether there are differences in P efficiency between sugar beet and wheat and to search for the plant properties responsible for different P efficiencies encountered and furthermore to see whether the kind of P binding in soil affects the P efficiency of crops. For this a pot experiment with an Oxisol with P mainly bound to Fe and Al (Fe/Al-P) and a Luvisol with P mainly bound to Ca (Ca-P) was run with increasing P fertilizer levels from 0 to 400 mg kg−1 in a climate chamber. Shoot dry weights of wheat and sugar beet increased strongly with P application in both soils. Both crops, despite their large differences in plant properties, had the same P efficiency in both soils. Therefore none of the species was especially able to use either Fe/Al-P or Ca-P. Wheat relied on a somewhat lower internal requirement, a large root system (high root/shoot ratio) and a low shoot growth rate with a low influx while sugar beet with a small root system and a large shoot growth rate relied on a 5 to 10 times higher influx. A mechanistic mathematical model for calculation of uptake and transport of nutrients in the rhizosphere was used to assess the influence of morphological and physiological root properties on P influx. A comparison of calculated and measured P influx showed that prediction by the model is reasonably accurate for Luvisol. For Oxisol, the predicted P influx was much less than the observed one, even when P influx by root hairs was considered. A sensitivity analysis showed that physiological uptake parameters like I max, K m, and CL min had no major influence on predicted influx. The greatest influence on influx had the P soil solution concentration C L i. It is assumed that both species had used mechanisms to increase P availability in the rhizosphere similar to an increase of C L i. Such mechanisms could be the exudation of organic acids, which are known as a sorption competitor to phosphate bound to Fe/Al-oxides or humic-Fe-(Al) complexes or to build soluble complexes with Fe and P. The close agreement between calculated and measured P influx in the Luvisol even at P deficiency indicates that root exudates were not able to mobilize Ca-bound P, whereas Fe/Al-P could be mobilized easily.