Development of the drought stress experimental system in the field with ridges
Description
The frequency and damage of droughts have been increasing in recent years, threatening the world's food supply. To develop drought-tolerant crops, many drought studies have been conducted, mainly in the laboratory, and the drought stress response mechanisms of plants have been elucidated at the molecular level. On the other hand, it has been pointed out that the drought stress response of plants in the field differs in some respects from the response mechanisms that have been elucidated in the laboratory, and there are still many unknowns. In the development of drought-tolerant crops, it is essential to conduct drought tolerance tests and elucidate the drought response mechanisms of plants in the field, but it is not easy to reproduce a constant drought environment in the field where the environment fluctuates irregularly.To overcome the various problems associated with drought trials in the field, we focused on “ridges.” During 6 years of trials, we showed that the volumetric water content (VWC) in ridges (ridge height, 30 cm) was consistently lower than that in the flats (Fig. 1A). We also demonstrated that there was no significant difference in the contents of nutrients, nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K) between the flats and ridges, both at the beginning and at the end of the soybean growing season (Fig.1B). We compared soybean growth in this system. The aboveground biomass of plants grown on ridges was clearly reduced compared with that of plants grown on flats; consequently, the yield of soybean grown on ridges was also reduced compared with that of soybean grown on flats (Fig. 2). The negative effect of ridges on plant growth and yield was complemented by irrigation, indicating that the reduction in plant growth on the ridges was mainly due to lack of water (Fig. 3). Together, these observations demonstrate that ridges are a valuable tool for inducing conditions that mimic mild drought stress in the field.
Although the height and width of the ridges need to be considered depending on the target plants, soil type, and desired level of drought stress, the developed drought stress experimental system is applicable to fields in various regions of the world and is expected to facilitate the selection and production of drought-tolerant lines.
Figure, table
- Research project
- Program name
- KAKEN
- Term of research
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FY2015-2023
- Responsible researcher
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Nagatoshi Yukari ( Biological Resources and Post-harvest Division )
Kobayashi Yasufumi ( Biological Resources and Post-harvest Division )
Fujii Kenichiro ( Biological Resources and Post-harvest Division )
Baba Junya ( Biological Resources and Post-harvest Division )
Fujita Yasunari ( Biological Resources and Post-harvest Division )
Ikazaki Kenta ( Crop, Livestock and Environment Division )
KAKEN Researcher No.: 70582021Oya Tetsuji ( Crop, Livestock and Environment Division )
- ほか
- Publication, etc.
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Nagatoshi et al. (2023) Nature Communications 14: 5047.https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-40773-1
- Japanese PDF
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2023_B02_ja.pdf965.97 KB
- English PDF
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2023_B02_en.pdf540.84 KB
＊ Affiliation at the time of implementation of the study.