AOBPreview originally published online on October 22, 2008
Annals of Botany 2009 103(2):211-220; doi:10.1093/aob/mcn199
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The effects of water regime on phosphorus responses of rainfed lowland rice cultivars
1 International Rice Research Institute, DAPO Box 7777, Metro Manila, Philippines
2 Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zürich), Institute of Plant Sciences, Eschikon 33, CH-8315 Lindau, Switzerland
* For correspondence. Current address: National Soil Resources Institute, Cranfield University, Cranfield, MK43 0AL, UK. E-mail g.kirk{at}cranfield.ac.uk
Received: 18 April 2008 Returned for revision: 27 May 2008 Accepted: 14 August 2008 Published electronically: 22 October 2008
Background and Aims: Soil phosphorus (P) solubility declines sharply when a flooded soil drains, and an important component of rice (Oryza sativa) adaptation to rainfed lowland environments is the ability to absorb and utilize P under such conditions. The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that rice cultivars differ in their P responses between water regimes because P uptake mechanisms differ.
Methods: Six lowland rice cultivars (three considered tolerant of low P soils, three sensitive) were grown in a factorial experiment with three water regimes (flooded, moist and flooded-then-moist) and four soil P levels, and growth and P uptake were measured. Small volumes of soil were used to maximize inter-root competition and uptake per unit root surface. The results were compared with the predictions of a model allowing for the effects of water regime on P solubility and diffusion.
Key Results: The plants were P stressed but not water stressed in all the water regimes at all P levels except the higher P additions in the flooded soil. The cultivar rankings scarcely differed between the water regimes and P additions. In all the treatments, the soil P concentrations required to explain the measured uptake were several times the concentration of freely available P in the soil.
Conclusions: The cultivar rankings were driven more by differences in growth habit than specific P uptake mechanisms, so the hypothesis cannot be corroborated with these data. Evidently all the plants could tap sparingly soluble forms of P by releasing a solubilizing agent or producing a greater root length than measured, or both. However, any cultivar differences in this were not apparent in greater net P uptake, possibly because the restricted rooting volume meant that additional P uptake could not be converted into new root growth to explore new soil volumes.
Key words: Oryza sativa, rainfed lowland, phosphorus efficiency, root morphology, solubilization, rice cultivar
Current address: Agroscope Reckenholz-Tänikon Research Station ART, Reckenholzstrasse 191, CH-8046 Zürich, Switzerland
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