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High morphological and physiological plasticity of wheat roots is conducive to higher competitive ability of wheat than maize in intercropping systems

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Abstract

Background and aims

Few studies have addressed the effects of root physiological plasticity on interspecific interactions. The present study aimed to investigate the plasticity of wheat and maize roots and their responses to nitrogen (N) application rates and neighboring species in wheat/maize intercropping.

Methods

The roots of wheat and maize were sampled three times by auger after about 90 days of co-growth in the intercropping treatment with five levels of N application and sole crops at one N application rate.

Results

Intercropped wheat altered its root length density (RLD) and lateral root distribution with different N application regimes, while lateral root distribution of intercropped maize was less sensitive to N application regimes. In addition, wheat had a 54.5 % (38–69 days) −375 % (0–37 days) higher N uptake rate per unit root length (NURl) when intercropped with maize compared with sole cropping but intercropped maize had either 58.3 % lower (0–37 days) or similar NURl than did sole cropped maize at the same N application rate.

Conclusions

Our findings suggest that the competitive ability of the plant species for underground resources is conducive to plasticities in RLD, lateral root distribution in response to soil N, and N uptake efficiency to neighboring species.

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Acknowledgments

This study was financed by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (Project Nos. 31270477 and 31210103906), the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Programm) (Project No. 2011CB100405) and the National Key Technology Research and Development Program (Project No. 2012BAD14B04). The authors are grateful for the comments and suggestions of the editor and two anonymous reviewers toward improving an earlier version of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Plant and Soil Interactions, Chinese Ministry of Education, College of Resources and Environmental Science, China Agricultural University, 2 Yuan Ming Yuan West Road, Beijing, 100193, China

    Yi-Xiang Liu, Wei-Ping Zhang, Xiao-Fei Li, Peter Christie & Long Li

  2. Institute of Soils, Fertilizers and Water-Saving Agriculture, Gansu Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Lanzhou, 730070, China

    Jian-Hao Sun

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  1. Yi-Xiang Liu
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  2. Wei-Ping Zhang
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Correspondence to Long Li.

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Responsible Editor: Alexia Stokes.

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Liu, YX., Zhang, WP., Sun, JH. et al. High morphological and physiological plasticity of wheat roots is conducive to higher competitive ability of wheat than maize in intercropping systems. Plant Soil 397, 387–399 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-015-2654-7

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