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A schematic diagram showing R0 (5-cm row spacing), R1 (15-cm row spacing), R2 (25-cm row spacing) and R3 (35-cm row spacing) planting patterns at a density of 3,600,000 plants ha-1 over two years.
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In northern China, large-spike wheat (Triticum aestivum L) is considered to have significant potential for increasing yields due to its greater single-plant productivity despite its lower percentage of effective tillers, and increasing the plant density is an effective means of achieving a higher grain yield. However, with increases in plant densit...
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ANAC072 positively regulates both age- and dark-induced leaf senescence through activating the transcription of
NYE1.
Abstract
Leaf senescence is integral to plant development, which is age-dependent and strictly regulated by internal and environmental signals. Although a number of senescence-related mutants and senescence-associated ge...
Citations
... Other researcher found the scarcity of input resources (sun light, fertilizer and moisture etc.) as potential reason to not support extensive dense crop geometries (Maddonni and Martínez-Bercovich, 2014). Liu et al. categorized the reasons behind the yield reduction under extensive corn density and referred the sunlight as the top influential factor (Liu et al., 2016). The illustration of yield components under different plant spacings and associated correlation functions can be seen in Fig. 9. ...
... However, these findings are contradicting from the work of Imran and Djaman, who reported non-significant difference among corn growth parameters under different plant densities (Irmak and Djaman, 2016b). Research work of other scientists supported our results by narrating the decrease in LAI with dense cropping over an optimum limit (Borrás et al., 2003;Liu et al., 2016). ...
The use of advanced resource conservation techniques is the need of time for higher crop production under the challenges of water scarcity and climate change. The present study was planned (1) to evaluate different plant spacing of corn, sown under raised bed planting (RBP) for higher productivity, (2) calibrate APSIM model for experimental treatments and (3) simulate future (2022-2100) crop response under different scenarios of climate change. The two-year research experiments were conducted on corn with four different plant spacings (S1:15 cm, S2:17.5 cm, S3:20 cm and S4:22.5 cm) under RBP. The crop response was evaluated in terms of leaf area index (LAI), plant height, flowering date, grains per cob, grain yield, biomass yield, harvest index (HI) and water productivity. The S1 treatment produced the highest productivity in terms of grain yield (7.16 Mg/hm 2), biomass yield (16.57 Mg/hm 2), HI (0.44) and water productivity (1.33 kg/m 3). APSIM model was calibrated and its ability to simulate crop response during validation was confirmed from the values of RMSE, NRMSE, R 2 , CRM and NSE as 0.4, 0.21, 0.83, 0.04 and 0.68 for grain yield. The RMSE and NRMSE were 0.79 and 0.14 for biomass yield. The value of R 2 ranged from 0.69 to 0.85, CRM from-0.03 to 0.005, NSE from 0.69 to 0.86 for biomass yield, plant height and LAI. During scenario simulations, the model run was performed against different plant spacing for optimization and results revealed that 10 cm plant spacing produced highest corn yield and growth parameters. Further simulations (2022-2100) were performed using climatic data, acquired from different general circulation model (GCMs) for two rcps (4.5 and 8.5) and results revealed the reduction in grain and biomass yields by 8-14 % and 10-28 %, respectively against different data sources (GCMs). Optimized plant spacing (10 cm) under RBP produced 35.5 % more grain yield and 29.3 % more biomass yield than that under control treatment (ridge-furrow system). Based on the research findings, it is recommended that conservation technique like RBP needs to be adopted in semi-arid regions to mitigate the impact of climate change in terms of future temperature rise for better corn production.
... Maize plant growth period decreased with increasing plant density for the same planting date; plant senescence started with the highest density 120,100 pph and decreased toward the lower densities ( Fig. 6 ). With increasing plant density, a reduced amount of solar radiation is intercepted by the lower strata leaves and the utilization efficiency of radiation decreased promoting accelerated rate of leaf senescence ( Borras et al., 2003 ;Liu et al., 2016 ). Moreover, lower leaf senescence suppressed root growth, N uptake, and altered N partition, thereby decreasing green leaf area and ultimately affecting grain yield ( Li et al., 2019 ). ...
This study aimed to measure maize (Zea mays) plant nutrient content and nutrient removal in grain, and to evaluate the residual soil nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium as impacted by planting date and density. Field experiments were conducted to evaluate six plant densities and seven planting dates using a split-split plot design with three replications. Beside the crop growth and yield parameters, six plants were collected at the maturity and soil was sampled from each plot for nutrient analysis. Plant N, P, and K concentrations varied with planting date and density and within the ranges of 0.6-1.024%, 0.054-0.127%, and 0.75-1.71%, respectively. Grain N, P, and K concentrations decreased with plant density and varied from 1.059 to 1.558%, 0.20 to 0.319%, and 0.29 to 0.43%, respectively. Soil residual nutrient varied with depth, planting density and date. Residual N concentration in the topsoil varied from 0.6 to 37.2 mg kg-1 in 2019 and from 1.5 to 11.2 mg kg-1 in 2020 and was high under the last two planting dates. Soil residual N concentration was higher in the second layer than in the topsoil. The N concentration in the third layer varied from 0.1 to 33.2 mg kg-1 and was impacted by plant density. Topsoil P did not vary among planting dates and densities. The second and third soil layers P concentration was not affected. There was 83% increase in topsoil K in 2020 compared to 2019, and a decrease of 65 and 23% in soil K was observed in the second and third soil layers, respectively. For maize production system sustainability, future research should use a holistic approach investigating the impact of planting date, plant density on crop growth, yield, nutrient uptake and remobilization, and soil properties under different fertilizer rates to develop the fertilizer recommendation for maize while reducing the environmental impact of the production system.
... Numerous studies have shown that it is feasible to improve yield via dense planting [4,12,[42][43][44][45]. However, more information is needed on whether the densification method affects the yieldincreasing of dense planting. ...
... Previous studies have shown that under narrow row spacing planting conditions, the biomass, leaf area index (LAI), and canopy apparent photosynthesis rate (CAP) were significantly higher than that under wide row spacing conditions, and the LAI and CAP decreased with the increase of row spacing, which was due to the fact that the population of wheat achieved canopy closure earlier during the jointing and booting stages under narrow row spacing conditions, significantly increasing the PAR interception of the canopy and thus forming higher biomass [31][32][33]. Other studies have pointed out that narrowing row spacing and thinning plant spacing can promote individual development of wheat plants and increase the tiller rate and tiller panicles formation rate [34][35][36]. Some studies hold the opposite views; the LAI under equal row spacing planting pattern were significantly higher than that under wide-narrow row planting pattern [37], the lodging rate significantly increases, which is caused by the increases of length in the first and second internodes under narrow row spacing planting conditions, and as the row spacing increases, the lodging rate decreases [38][39][40]. ...
... In the practice of wheat cultivation, mastering the growth status of wheat plants at various growth stages and using cultivation techniques to create an appropriate population structure is of great significance for wheat to fully utilize natural resources such as light energy and soil fertility [24,31,35]. Whether the wheat population structure is reasonable should be analyzed from the aspects of population size, distribution, growth, and dynamic changes [45]. ...
A suitable population structure is the foundation for a high yield of wheat. Studying the changes in yield and population structure of different wheat rows under drip irrigation conditions can provide a theoretical basis for optimizing wheat drip irrigation pattern. In a two-year field experiment, two different water- and fertilizer-demanding spring wheat varieties (XC22 and XC44) were used to study the changes of stem and tiller dynamics, dry matter accumulation, canopy photo-synthetically active radiation (PAR) interception, and canopy apparent photosynthesis rate (CAP) under one tube serving four rows of wheat drip irrigation pattern (TR4, drip lateral spacing (DLS) = 60 cm, wheat row spacing (WRS) = 15 cm) and one tube serving six rows of wheat drip irrigation pattern (TR6, DLS = 90 cm, WRS = 15 cm; TR6L, DLS = 90 cm, WRS = 10 cm and TR6S, DLS = 80 cm, WRS = 10 cm). The results showed that under the condition of equal row spacing of 15 cm, after increasing the number of wheat rows serving by one drip irrigation tube from four (TR4, control) to six (TR6), the yields (water use efficiency) of XC22 and XC44 were lower by 11.19% and 8.63%, respectively. The reduction of yield was related to uneven population growth, specifically as follows: compared with the first wheat row (R1), at flowering stage the leaf area index (LAI) and PAR interception in the third wheat row (R3) of XC22 and XC44 were significantly decreased by 30.02%, 18.69%, 9.59%, and 14.74%, respectively. At the maturity stage, the biomass, plant height, and panicles number of tiller (TPN) in R3 were significantly decreased by 22.15%, 12.34%, 15.46%, 5.24%, 65.07%, and 42.11%, respectively. At the jointing, flowering, and milk-ripening stage, the CAP were significantly decreased by 24.65%, 22.85%, 17.06%, 14.02%, 42.14%, and 32.27%, respectively, the decrease of XC22 were all higher than that of XC44 (except for PAR interception). After the TR6 pattern was processed to narrow the wheat row spacing from 15 cm to 10 cm under the condition of the same drip tube lateral spacing (TR6L) and under the condition of shortening drip tube lateral spacing by 10 cm (TR6S), the yields in R3 of XC22 and XC44 were significantly increased by 20.07%, 18.43%, 30.39%, and 23.80%, respectively, and the increase in yields were related to the improvement of LAI, biomass, plant height, TPN, PAR interception, and increased population photosynthesis. Among the four drip irrigation patterns, for both XC22 and XC44, the yield of TR6S was the closest to that of TR4, and the yields of them were significantly higher than that of TR6 and TR6L.
... This is accomplished with an end-to-end pipeline to generate canopy fingerprints of a three-dimensional point cloud of soybean, which is simple to use for feature extraction and utilization in a myriad of applications, including modeling, genomic prediction, ideotype breeding, and cultivar development. For example, the development of unique canopy fingerprints could enable faster and more efficient screening of genetic material for identifying canopy relationships with yield traits (Liu et al, 2016), biotic stress traits such as disease and insects (Pangga et al, 2011), how various canopy levels impact planting density, light interception, and photosynthesis (Feng et al., 2016), enable novel meta-GWAS (Shook et al., 2021a) or improve how crop modeling could predict the ideal canopy fingerprint (Rötter et al., 2015), or fingerprint ideotype, which could then be screened across core collections (Glaszmann et al., 2010) to narrow the pool of experimental genotypes in silico prior to in vivo evaluation. ...
Advances in imaging hardware allow high throughput capture of the detailed three-dimensional (3D) structure of plant canopies. The point cloud data is typically post-processed to extract coarse-scale geometric features (like volume, surface area, height, etc.) for downstream analysis. We extend feature extraction from 3D point cloud data to various additional features, which we denote as ‘canopy fingerprints’. This is motivated by the successful application of the fingerprint concept for molecular fingerprints in chemistry applications and acoustic fingerprints in sound engineering applications. We developed an end-to-end pipeline to generate canopy fingerprints of a three-dimensional point cloud of soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] canopies grown in hill plots captured by a terrestrial laser scanner (TLS). The pipeline includes noise removal, registration, and plot extraction, followed by the canopy fingerprint generation. The canopy fingerprints are generated by splitting the data into multiple sub-canopy scale components and extracting sub-canopy scale geometric features. The generated canopy fingerprints are interpretable and can assist in identifying patterns in a database of canopies, querying similar canopies, or identifying canopies with a certain shape. The framework can be extended to other modalities (for instance, hyperspectral point clouds) and tuned to find the most informative fingerprint representation for downstream tasks. These canopy fingerprints can aid in the utilization of canopy traits at previously unutilized scales, and therefore have applications in plant breeding and resilient crop production.
... Increasing planting density is the primary way to increase winter wheat yields [4,5]. The wheat canopy structure and canopy microenvironment are related to planting density and population growth, with planting density affecting the growth and development of individual wheat plants [6]. ...
A strong canopy structure is central to maximizing yield. The canopy microenvironment, which is related to crop growth and development, reflects changes in a crop’s microclimate. In this study, with the uniform sowing of winter wheat (Triticun aestivum L.), five planting densities (in 104 plants·ha−1: 123, 156, 204, 278, and 400) were established to examine how the planting density affected filling stage spikes, canopy structures, microenvironments, yields, and yield components. The large-spike Xindong 50 and multi-spike Sangtamu 4 varieties were used. The experiment was conducted over 263 days in the Xinjiang province, in a warm continental arid desert-type climate, with low precipitation. The study aimed to determine the optimal parameters for cultivation on limited land and improve the production potential. For both varieties, from anthesis to filling, increases in planting density were associated with a rapid reduction in the leaf area index of the lower and middle parts of the leaves. Canopy temperature and canopy CO2 concentration also decreased, whereas relative humidity increased. The number of grains per spike and the thousand-grain weight of both varieties decreased with increased planting density. Yields were maximized at densities of 278 × 104 and 156 × 104 plants·ha−1 for the large- and multi-spike varieties, respectively, indicating that uniform sowing improves plant uniformity, and adjusting planting density optimizes canopy structure and microenvironment. Our study provides valuable data for optimizing planting densities to ensure high yields.
... However, when row spacing is reduced to a certain distance, the distribution of plant populations and individuals reaches a balance. If row spacing is further decreased, yield is not affected or even decreased (Liu et al., 2016;De Vita et al., 2017). However, the mechanism by which reducing row spacing can increase yield is complex. ...
... Additionally, changing the density by increasing the inter-row distance has a stronger effect than changing the density of plants within a row, as it leads to increased crop spatial heterogeneity (Fischer et al., 2019). Furthermore, plants with a uniform spatial distribution show better tolerance to high-density planting, and the population and individuals receive more coordinated light, which is an important factor in reducing row spacing to improve yield (Liu et al., 2016). ...
As an important type of interplant competition, line-spacing shrinkage and row-spacing expansion (LSRE) can increase the number of tillers and improve resource utilization efficiency in wheat. Wheat tillering is closely related to various phytohormones. However, it is unclear whether LSRE regulates phytohormones and their relationship to tillering and wheat yield. This study evaluated tillering characteristics, phytohormone content in tiller nodes at the pre-winter stage, and grain yield factors for the winter wheat variety Malan1. We used a two-factor randomized block trial design with two sowing spacings of 15 cm (15RS, conventional treatment) and 7.5 cm (7.5RS, LSRE treatment) at the same density and three sowing-date groups (SD1, SD2, and SD3). LSRE significantly promoted wheat tillering and biomass at the pre-winter stage (average increases of 14.5% and 20.9% in the three sowing-date groups, respectively) and shortened the accumulated temperature required for a single tiller. Changes in the levels of phytohormones, including decreased gibberellin and indole acetic acid and increased zeatin riboside and strigolactones, were determined by high-performance liquid chromatography and were shown to be responsible for the tillering process under LSRE treatment in winter wheat. LSRE treatment can improve crop yield by increasing the number of spikes per unit area and grain weight. Our results clarified the changes in tillering and phytohormones content of winter wheat under LSRE treatment and their correlation with grain yield. This study also provides insights into the physiological mechanisms of alleviating inter-plant competition to improve crop yield.
... This could promise the coordinated relationship of the source-sink in wheat, and photosynthetic assimilate production capacity to a certain extent improved and relatively stable. Liu et al. [7] found that adjusting the appropriate row spacing under high-density conditions is conducive to alleviating the contradiction between groups and individuals. The population leaf area index is higher while maintaining a longer green leaf period during the filling process. ...
In order to provide a theoretical basis and technical approach for the construction and regulation of medium- and high-yield population cultivation practice of wheat after rice, agronomic and physiological characteristics in medium-high yielding populations were investigated by setting different basic seedlings and cutting leaves and ears with isotope tracing method in week-gluten wheat (Ningmai 29). The results showed that the medium-high yield (yield above 7500 kg/km2) group could be achieved at medium densities (150 × 104/hm2 and 225 × 104/hm2), whose populations own suitable number of spikes, higher grain number per spike and thousand-grain weight (the larger and stronger ‘sink’). Meanwhile, these two medium-high yielding populations had higher leaf area index and suitable light-transmission rate after anthesis; thus, the leaf net photosynthetic rate after anthesis was higher, and the capacity of carbon assimilates was stronger. From the 15N test, it can be seen that the relationship between individuals in the medium-high yielding population (medium-density) is more harmonious, and the plant had higher nitrogen utilization efficiency. More nitrogen is concentrated in the spike at maturity. The results of the 13C pot trials showed that the top-three functional leaves had a higher capacity for source-production, which was also the main source of post-flowering assimilates. Increasing their area to improve the ‘source–sink’ ratio would help coordinate the ‘source–sink’ relationship in the group with a stronger ‘sink’. The main technical approach is to increase the area and duration of the upper-three functional leaves after anthesis on the basis of a larger sink, thus ensuring a higher source–sink ratio and a harmonious ‘source–sink’ relationship after flowering.
... Higher LAI aggravated the shading effects between summer maize plants under highdensity treatment, significantly reducing the PAR interception ratio measured at the middle and bottom of the canopy, thereby reducing the photosynthetic capacity of leaves located at the bottom of the canopy [53,55]. Liu et al. [56] found that with an increase in plant density, the amount of solar radiation intercepted by the lower leaves decreased and the leaf senescence speed increased, which agrees with our study. Moreover, the PAR interception ratio at the middle of the canopy significantly impacted the grain yield because the spiked leaf and its adjacent leaves are the most vital functions in the grain formation of summer maize [57]. ...
Increasing the planting density of summer maize to improve the utilization efficiency of limited soil and water resources is an effective approach; however, how the leaf water-use efficiency (WUEL), yield, and RUE respond to planting density and genotypes remains unclear. A 2-year field experiment was performed in the North China Plain (NCP) to investigate the effects of planting density (high, 100,000 plants ha−1; medium, 78,000 plants ha−1; and low, 56,000 plants ha−1) and genotypes (Zhengdan 958 and Denghai 605) on the leaf area index (LAI), photosynthetic characteristics, dry-matter accumulation, WUEL, and RUE of maize. The objective was to explore the effect of density and genotype on the WUEL and RUE of maize. Increasing planting density boosted LAI, light interception, dry-matter accumulation, and spike number but reduced the chlorophyll content, net photosynthetic rate, transpiration rate, and 1000-kernel weight. Both high and low planting densities were averse to RUE and yield. Zhengdan 958 increased the WUEL by 19.45% compared with Denghai 605, but the RUE of Denghai 605 was 18.19% higher than Zhengdan 958, suggesting that Denghai 605 had a greater production potential as the planting density increased. Our findings recommend using 78,000 plants ha−1 as the planting density with Denghai 605 to maintain summer maize yields in the NCP.
... Adicionalmente, em espaçamentos mais amplos a menor competição por luminosidade melhora a interceptação, distribuição e captura de luminosidade em resposta aos aumentos na área, ângulo e orientação foliar causados pela maior área vital disponível para o desenvolvimento da copa das árvores (LIU et al., 2016). Como consequência, a eficiência fotossintética é melhorada pelo aumento na fixação de substâncias fotoassimiladas, assim como a absorção e utilização de água e nutrientes (LIU et al., 2011;REN et al., 2017). ...
