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Work package 2: Understanding crop and microbiome responses to combined water and nutrient limitations

Description

Work package 2 determined the traits influencing (i) resource acquisition (below-ground dynamics of soil exploration by roots and leveraging of microbial activity, including that of root symbionts), (ii) resource utilisation (plant growth and resource allocation), as well as (iii) their interactions. This was achieved using phenotyping under combined realistic limitations of water and nutrients (as defined in work package 1) in field and controlled conditions platforms, as well as novel modelling solutions combining Functional Structural Plant Models (FSPM) and CSM. Phenotypic data on large panels were used for genetic analyses in work package 4. This enabled the SolACE consortium to draw links between crop performance, above- and below-ground traits and the root-associated beneficial microbiome, in oder to dissect crop response to combined water and nutrient stresses. Work package 2 also evaluated the functioning of novel genotypes (e.g. hybrid wheat and potato) produced in work package 4 to validate the implemented breeding process and/or stacking of traits in those genotypes

Objectives

Work package 2 measured and modeled the responses of potato, bread and durum wheat genotypes to combined water and nutrient limitations. The work package:

  • Explored the variation of traits influencing resource availability, soil exploration and resource use under realistic water and N limitations within large panels of wheat genotypes, in high thoughput controlled conditions platforms.
  • Analysed wheat responses (yield and yield-related traits) of the same panel to variations of resource availability in a network of field trials involving optimal conditions and combined water and N limitations.
  • Identified diagnostic transcriptome signatures for N deficiency, P deficiency and drought stress in potatoes to enable the identification of the limiting stress in plants experiencing combined stresses.
  • Analysed crop and microbiome responses to combined resource limitations using selected genotypes and novel hybrids grown in semi-field phenotyping installations and identified novel traits and microbiome signatures enhancing tolerance to these limitations.
  • Coupled plant scale FSPMs and plot scale crop models to explore the most relevant aspects of the soil-microbiome-crop-atmosphere system and investigate the value of novel traits combinations.

Key results and messages

  • Wheat and potatoes display important diversity of root system architecture features in controlled conditions, greenhouse, semi-field and field setups, with broad sense heritabilities (in wheat) between 30% and 80%.
  • This diversity is also present in novel potato and bread wheat hybrids. In a few cases, the performance of wheat hybrids can be accounted for by the combination of traits that are expressed by their parents.
  • Deep roots significantly contribute to the uptake of water and nitrogen from deep soil layers, leading to improved stress tolerance and reduced nitrogen leakage in deep soils.
  • However, sole high-throughput root phenotyping in controlled conditions seems to be a poor predictor of crop stress tolerance in real field conditions. The combination of detailed traits from different platforms with field and environmental data has proven valuable to unleash the potential of phenotyping platforms dedicated to above-ground features. Similar strategies should be elaborated and tested with below-ground features.
  • A new generation of models has been introduced which combines a crop growth component (Sirius) with two functional-structural soil-plant components (Min3P and ArchiSimple). The new model has been used with SolACE data from wheat diversity panels evaluated in greenhouse and field phenotyping experiments to run sensitivity analyses leading to the in silico (predictive) evaluation of novel traits combinations.
  • Root microbiomes appear to evolve rapidly with crop, genotype and environmental conditions, leading to particular signatures which indicate potential crop-microbe interactions supporting stress mitigation.

Resources

Practice abstracts and training materials

Videos

Public Deliverables

Journal articles

Other

Work package leaders

  • Prof. Xavier Draye, UCL, Work package leader
  • Jean-Pierre Cohan, ARVALIS, Work package co-leader
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