TY - JOUR
T1 - Grain carbon isotope composition is a marker for allocation and harvest index in wheat
AU - Domergue, Jean Baptiste
AU - Abadie, Cyril
AU - Lalande, Julie
AU - Deswarte, Jean Charles
AU - Ober, Eric
AU - Laurent, Valérie
AU - Zimmerli, Céline
AU - Lerebour, Philippe
AU - Duchalais, Laure
AU - Bédard, Camille
AU - Derory, Jérémy
AU - Moittie, Thierry
AU - Lamothe-Sibold, Marlène
AU - Beauchêne, Katia
AU - Limami, Anis M.
AU - Tcherkez, Guillaume
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Authors. Plant, Cell & Environment published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
PY - 2022/7
Y1 - 2022/7
N2 - The natural 13C abundance (δ13C) in plant leaves has been used for decades with great success in agronomy to monitor water-use efficiency and select modern cultivars adapted to dry conditions. However, in wheat, it is also important to find genotypes with high carbon allocation to spikes and grains, and thus with a high harvest index (HI) and/or low carbon losses via respiration. Finding isotope-based markers of carbon partitioning to grains would be extremely useful since isotope analyses are inexpensive and can be performed routinely at high throughput. Here, we took the advantage of a set of field trials made of more than 600 plots with several wheat cultivars and measured agronomic parameters as well as δ13C values in leaves and grains. We find a linear relationship between the apparent isotope discrimination between leaves and grain (denoted as Δδcorr), and the respiration use efficiency-to-HI ratio. It means that overall, efficient carbon allocation to grains is associated with a small isotopic difference between leaves and grains. This effect is explained by postphotosynthetic isotope fractionations, and we show that this can be modelled by equations describing the carbon isotope composition in grains along the wheat growth cycle. Our results show that 13C natural abundance in grains could be useful to find genotypes with better carbon allocation properties and assist current wheat breeding technologies.
AB - The natural 13C abundance (δ13C) in plant leaves has been used for decades with great success in agronomy to monitor water-use efficiency and select modern cultivars adapted to dry conditions. However, in wheat, it is also important to find genotypes with high carbon allocation to spikes and grains, and thus with a high harvest index (HI) and/or low carbon losses via respiration. Finding isotope-based markers of carbon partitioning to grains would be extremely useful since isotope analyses are inexpensive and can be performed routinely at high throughput. Here, we took the advantage of a set of field trials made of more than 600 plots with several wheat cultivars and measured agronomic parameters as well as δ13C values in leaves and grains. We find a linear relationship between the apparent isotope discrimination between leaves and grain (denoted as Δδcorr), and the respiration use efficiency-to-HI ratio. It means that overall, efficient carbon allocation to grains is associated with a small isotopic difference between leaves and grains. This effect is explained by postphotosynthetic isotope fractionations, and we show that this can be modelled by equations describing the carbon isotope composition in grains along the wheat growth cycle. Our results show that 13C natural abundance in grains could be useful to find genotypes with better carbon allocation properties and assist current wheat breeding technologies.
KW - carbon 13
KW - partitioning
KW - post-photosynthetic fractionation
KW - respiration use efficiency
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85129506653&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1111/pce.14339
DO - 10.1111/pce.14339
M3 - Article
SN - 0140-7791
VL - 45
SP - 2145
EP - 2157
JO - Plant, Cell and Environment
JF - Plant, Cell and Environment
IS - 7
ER -