Arcand: Soil health and nutrient uptake among diverse canola lines - added value to crop phenotyping
Date: June 2021
Term: 2 years
Status: Completed
Researchers: Melissa Arcand and Bobbi Helgason, University of Saskatchewan; Sally Vail, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada
SaskCanola Investment: $16,539
Total Project Cost: $74,068
Funding Partners: Agriculture Development Fund
Project Summary
Crops that can readily exploit and utilize soil nutrients more efficiently require less fertilizer inputs, offsetting input costs and reducing potential losses to the environment. In this project, researchers wanted to understand how canola interacts with soil properties to affect crop nutrient uptake and productivity, especially as assessed in breeder trials. The project included a diverse panel of canola, and was platformed on field trials established as part of P2IRC. The study showed that soil inorganic N and extractable sulphur were most responsive to differences in Brassica napus genotype, while available phosphorus and soil pH were unaffected. There were also significant relationships between soil microbial community composition, soil inorganic N, and crop NUE.
Crops that can readily exploit and utilize soil nutrients more efficiently require less fertilizer inputs, offsetting significant input costs for producers and reducing potential losses to the environment. However, developing crops with high nutrient uptake capacity and nutrient use efficiency (NUE) requires an improved understanding of plant roots, as well as the root-microbe and root-mineral interactions that enhance soil nutrient availability.
In this multi-year project, researchers wanted to understand how canola interacts with soil properties to affect crop nutrient uptake and productivity, especially as assessed in breeder trials. The project was focused on using a diverse panel of canola, which was the Nested Association Mapping (NAM) population parental genotypes. This work was platformed on field trials established as part of the Plant Phenotyping and Imaging Research Centre (P2IRC) on aboveground and root microbiome phenotyping across a diverse set of canola genotypes.
The goal of this project was to help canola breeders make stronger linkages between crop phenotype and genotype and the environment, advancing breeding efforts to develop profitable crops for producers with minimal environmental impact. The project objectives were to address whether crop nutrient uptake profiles and soil nutrient dynamics differ with canola genotype; and how dynamic soil properties such as pH and soil carbon that govern nutrient availability interact with genotype to influence nutrient uptake and crop productivity.
Researchers characterized soil properties and nutrient availability and crop nutrient uptake under a set of Brassica napus parental lines. The canola lines were selected from a subset of genotypes from a nested association mapping (NAM) population grown in field trials conducted over seven site-years from 2016-2018 as part of the P2IRC. In 2018, an additional field trial was established to evaluate the nitrogen (N) fertilizer response of two NAM lines from the main P2IRC experiment, as well as two hybrids developed from these NAM lines.
The project included soil and plant sampling and analyses, and testing for the effects of N availability on canola belowground phenotypes. The same platform and approach was used across all field experiments. This soil and plant nutrient data was related to the rhizosphere microbiome data as well as aboveground phenotyping data being collected as part of the P2IRC initiative across a diverse set of canola genotypes.
Overall, the study showed that soil inorganic N and extractable sulphur were most responsive to differences in B. napus genotype, while available phosphorus and soil pH were unaffected. Variation in soil properties was strongest within the growing season and changes in nutrients were relatively consistent among site-years, with some exceptions. Root traits and soil inorganic N were related to microbial diversity and community composition and crop NUE.
In the more focused investigation, researchers were able to relate the rhizosphere microbiome to soil N and crop N uptake and nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) for one site-year. The study showed that there were significant relationships between soil microbial community composition, soil inorganic N, and crop NUE. Further research in identifying the drivers of genotype-specific differences in soil nutrient cycling and uptake are warranted.
Scientific publications
Williams, S.T., Vail, S., Arcand, M.M., 2021. Nitrogen use efficiency in parent vs. hybrid canola under varying nitrogen availabilities. Plants 10, 2364. https://doi.org/10.3390/plants10112364