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Slow induction of photosynthesis on shade to sun transitions in wheat may cost at least 21% of productivity.

ABSTRACT: Wheat is the second most important direct source of food calories in the world. After considerable improvement during the Green Revolution, increase in genetic yield potential appears to have stalled. Improvement of photosynthetic efficiency now appears a major opportunity in addressing the sustainable yield increases needed to meet future food demand. Effort, however, has focused on increasing efficiency under steady-state conditions. In the field, the light environment at the level of individual leaves is constantly changing. The speed of adjustment of photosynthetic efficiency can have a profound effect on crop carbon gain and yield. Flag leaves of wheat are the major photosynthetic organs supplying the grain of wheat, and will be intermittently shaded throughout a typical day. Here, the speed of adjustment to a shade to sun transition in these leaves was analysed. On transfer to sun conditions, the leaf required about 15 min to regain maximum photosynthetic efficiency. In vivo analysis based on the responses of leaf CO2 assimilation (A) to intercellular CO2 concentration (ci) implied that the major limitation throughout this induction was activation of the primary carboxylase of C3 photosynthesis, ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (Rubisco). This was followed in importance by stomata, which accounted for about 20% of the limitation. Except during the first few seconds, photosynthetic electron transport and regeneration of the CO2 acceptor molecule, ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate (RubP), did not affect the speed of induction. The measured kinetics of Rubisco activation in the sun and de-activation in the shade were predicted from the measurements. These were combined with a canopy ray tracing model that predicted intermittent shading of flag leaves over the course of a June day. This indicated that the slow adjustment in shade to sun transitions could cost 21% of potential assimilation.This article is part of the themed issue 'Enhancing photosynthesis in crop plants: targets for improvement'.

SUBMITTER: Taylor SH

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5566890 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Slow induction of photosynthesis on shade to sun transitions in wheat may cost at least 21% of productivity.

Taylor Samuel H SH Long Stephen P SP

Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences 20170901 1730

Wheat is the second most important direct source of food calories in the world. After considerable improvement during the Green Revolution, increase in genetic yield potential appears to have stalled. Improvement of photosynthetic efficiency now appears a major opportunity in addressing the sustainable yield increases needed to meet future food demand. Effort, however, has focused on increasing efficiency under steady-state conditions. In the field, the light environment at the level of individu ...[more]

PMID: 28808109

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Project description:Tropospheric ozone causes severe oxidative stress in plants. To investigate the transcriptional responsiveness of adult trees to ozone, fully-expanded sun and shade leaves of mature beech trees were harvested at four time points over the entire vegetation period in 2005 and 2006. Microarray analyses were conducted on leaves from trees grown in the field under ambient and twice-ambient ozone concentrations at Kranzberger Forst (Bavarian). Beech trees changed their transcript levels in response to ozone. In the years 2005 and 2006 different transcription patterns were observed; this may have been a result of different weather conditions and ozone uptake. Furthermore, we obtained differences in mRNA expression patterns between shade and sun leaves. In the ozone-treated sun leaves of 2005, slightly up- and down-regulated transcript levels were detected, particularly in the spring and autumn, whereas shade leaves clearly exhibited reduced mRNA-levels, particularly at the end of the vegetation period. In 2006, this pattern could not be confirmed, and in the autumn, four other transcripts were slightly up-regulated in ozone-treated shade leaves. In addition, two additional transcripts were found to be influenced in sun leaves in the spring/summer. While we detected changes in the levels of only a few transcripts, the observed effects were not identical in both years. In conclusion, elevated ozone exhibited very small influence on the transcription levels of genes of mature beech trees. The study was carried out at the Kranzberger Forst research site (near Freising, Germany: 48°25’08’’N, 11°39’41’””E, 485m (Pretzsch et al., 1998) in a mixed 60-year old stand (closed canopy) with about 30m high European beech (Fagus sylvatica) and Norway spruce (Picea abies) trees. Free-air ozone fumigation started in May 2000 at double the ambient ozone concentrations with a cut-off at 150 nl l-1 (Werner and Fabian, 2002), thereby avoiding acute damage to the leaves. The ozone concentrations were measured at four heights within the fumigated space and were additionally monitored with 200 passive samplers (Werner and Fabian, 2002). In 2005 the AOT40 value under twice ambient ozone was 64.3 μmol mol-1 h and in 2006 69.0 μmol mol-1 h. Detailed ozone concentration data over the growing seasons have been reported elsewhere (Gielen et al., 2007; Kitao et al., 2009). Sun and shade leaves from 60-year-old European beech trees were harvested in a total of 8 sampling campaigns in 2005 and 2006. Using scaffolding, five leaves of sun crown (height of about 25 m) and five shade (height of about 19 m) leaves were taken from each of five control and ozone-treated trees. The sampling was carried out in May, June, August, and September of 2005 and in June, August, September and October of 2006. To avoid diurnal effects, the samples were always taken around 11 a.m. For each tree, the four leaves (sun or shade) were combined, frozen in liquid nitrogen and stored at -80 °C until RNA isolation. For one time point we had five microarrays and five dye-swaps for each of sun and shade leaves. The probes of the trees under ambient ozone were labelled with Cy3 and probes of the trees under 2x ambient were labelled with Cy5. For every pair of trees a dye control were carried out, where the control trees were labelled with Cy5 and the ozone-treated one with Cy3. For statistical analysis a coefficient of variation about all microarrays of one time point was calculated using Acuity 4.0 microarray informatics software [Axon Instruments]. We used only those spots that had a coefficient of variation < 50 and were present on at least half of identical slides. The ozone-changed transcript level of genes were expressed in the median values as log2 ratios.

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Slow induction of photosynthesis on shade to sun transitions in wheat may cost at least 21% of productivity.

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Slow induction of photosynthesis on shade to sun transitions in wheat may cost at least 21% of productivity.

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