Maize Morphophysiological Responses to Intense Crowding and Low Nitrogen Availability: An Analysis and Review

By Christopher Boomsma, J. Santini, M. Tollenaar, Tony Vyn. 2009

265 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Mounting concerns over the cost and environmental impact of N fertilizer combined with progressively higher plant densities in maize (Zea mays L.) production systems make progress in maize N use efficiency (NUE) and N stress tolerance essential. The primary objectives of this 3-yr field study were to (i) evaluate the N responsiveness, NUE, and N stress tolerance of multiple modern maize genotypes using suboptimal, optimal, and supraoptimal plant densities (54,000,79,000, and 104,000 plants ha -1 , respectively) with three levels of side-dress N (0, 165, and 330 kg N ha -1 ), (ii) identify key morphophysiological responses to the simultaneous stresses of intense crowding and low N availability, and (iii) consider our results with extensive reference to literature on maize morphophysiological responses to plant crowding and N availability. At optimal and supraoptimal plant densities, maize receiving 165 kg ha -1 of side-dress N displayed strong N responsiveness, high NUE, pronounced crowding tolerance, and plant density independence. However, crowding tolerance was contingent on N application. Relative to less crowded, N-fertilized environments, the 104,000 plants ha -1 , 0 kg N ha-1 treatment combination exhibited (i) reduced pre- and postanthesis plant height (PHT), stem diameter (SD), and total biomass; (ii) greater preflowering leaf senescence and lower R1 leaf areas at individual-leaf, per-plant, and canopy levels; (iii) enhanced floral protandry; (iv) lower pre- and postanthesis leaf-chlorophyll content; (v) lower per-plant kernel number (KN P ), individual kernel weight (KW), grain yield per plant (GYp), andharvest index per plant (HI P ); and (vi) enhanced per-plant grain yield variability (GY CV ). Genetic efforts to improve high plant density tolerance should, therefore, simultaneously focus on enhancing NUE and N stress tolerance.

Subfields: Agronomy and Crop Science, Plant Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/0cd1ddb3053e38bbad0edb0e7b8d8c9a841190fb

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Citations in the corpus

A comprehensive study of plant density consequences on nitrogen uptake dynamics of maize plants from vegetative to reproductive stages (2011, background): “Furthermore, selection of hybrids with the combination of high NUE and stress tolerance to low N is even more challenging when maize plant densities are above optimum (Boomsma et al., 2009).”
Maize response to elevated plant density combined with lowered N-fertilizer rate is genotype-dependent (2015, background): “Along with the prevailing belief that high yields require more plants and that more plants require more N, the idea that different hybrids respond differently to both N and plant density should be considered [26].”
Responses of Maize Hybrids to Twin-Row Spatial Arrangement at Multiple Plant Densities (2012, methodology): “Boomsma et al. (2009) and Ciampitti et al. (2012) documented similar trends in their studies at the same location.”
Maize grain yield responses to plant height variability resulting from crop rotation and tillage system in a long-term experiment (2010, background): “Given that plant-to-plant growth and developmental uniformity is strongly associated with greater yield in maize (Glenn and Daynard, 1974; Tokatlidis and Koutroubas, 2004; Andrade and Abbate, 2005; Boomsma et al., 2009), plant height variability may be a better indicator or predictor of yield loss i”
Plant biomass and nitrogen partitioning changes between silking and maturity in newer versus older maize hybrids (2015, background): “Boomsma et al. (2009) showed that eaf chlorophyll concentrations are usually lower at high densities ven at the V14 and R1 stages when maize leaves are relatively oung, and earlier leaf senescence occurred at high densities even hen N rates were well above the agronomic optimum.”