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Review article2018Peer reviewedOpen access

Analyzing plant nutrient uptake and utilization efficiencies: comparison between crops and approaches

Weih, M.; Hamner, K.; Pourazari, F.

Abstract

Various indices are applied to evaluate the nutrient (mostly nitrogen, N) use efficiency of plants, but those indices have rarely been compared across different crops, and the co-limitation of growth by nutrients other than N is usually not considered.To conceptually and quantitatively compare the indices of a plant-level, a plant-soil-level and a field-level (difference) method for the assessment of N use across a set of different annual and perennial crops; and to use some plant-level indices for exploring the co-limitation of growth by nutrients other than N in wheat.Data sets from previously published studies on wheat (grain), maize (feed), potato (starch), grassland ley (feed) and Salix (bio-energy) field-grown in Sweden were re-analyzed.This study is first in conceptually and quantitatively comparing various popular N use indices across a wide range of annual and perennial crops; and also proposes a methodology for exploring the co-limitation of growth by nutrients other than N. When comparing the plant-level and plant-soil-level methods, the indices relating crop yields to the amounts of plant-internal N were correlated, while the N-uptake indices were not. Only few of the field-level (difference-method) indices were correlated with indices of the two other methods.

Keywords

Agricultural crops; Element stoichiometry; Nitrogen; Nutrient use efficiency; Phosphorus

Published in

Plant and Soil
2018, Volume: 430, number: 1-2, pages: 7-21