Effect of Lolium perenne population differences on shoot tissue nitrogen concentrations when grown on a peat soil

Jeroen Pijlman, Nyncke Hoekstra, Joachim G.C. Deru, J. W. Erisman, Nick J.M. van Eekeren. 2023. Effect of Lolium perenne population differences on shoot tissue nitrogen concentrations when grown on a peat soil. The Journal of Agricultural Science. First View, pp 1-13.
Pagina's / pages: 13
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Taal/language: Engels
Abstract / summary in English:

Grass nitrogen (N) concentrations of dairy grasslands are higher on peat soil than on mineral soils. This can lead to increased N losses to air and water from dairy farming systems on peat soils. Our hypothesis was that the use of low-N perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.) genotypes could be a means to lower grass N concentrations, when grown on peat soils. Our objective was to determine whether perennial ryegrass populations with different shoot tissue N concentrations, recorded on a sandy soil, would show different shoot tissue N concentrations and N use efficiencies (NUE) or N uptake efficiencies (NUptE) when grown on a peat soil. First, a pot experiment lasting 62 days was carried out with nine diploid and seven tetraploid populations, followed by a field experiment with two diploid and two tetraploid populations and a control lasting 30 months. Both experiments had three N fertilization levels. In the pot experiment, populations explained 3% of the variation in shoot tissue N concentration among tetraploids, 5 and 7% of the variation in NUE among diploids and tetraploids and 12% of the variation in NUptE among diploids. In the field experiment, populations explained 44% of the variation in NUptE. A higher NUE coincided with lower shoot tissue N concentrations among tetraploid populations in the pot experiment. We conclude that there is potential to alter the shoot tissue N concentrations of perennial ryegrass grown on peat soil, via selection for shoot tissue N concentrations and NUE.

Keywords in English: crude protein; dairy farming; nitrogen use efficiency; perennial ryegrass; plant breeding