5,489
Views
319
CrossRef citations to date
0
Altmetric
Original Articles

The Role of Nutrient Efficient Plants in Improving Crop Yields in the Twenty First Century

, &
Pages 1121-1157 | Received 26 Feb 2007, Accepted 15 Jul 2007, Published online: 04 Jun 2008
 

ABSTRACT

In the 21st century, nutrient efficient plants will play a major role in increasing crop yields compared to the 20th century, mainly due to limited land and water resources available for crop production, higher cost of inorganic fertilizer inputs, declining trends in crop yields globally, and increasing environmental concerns. Furthermore, at least 60% of the world's arable lands have mineral deficiencies or elemental toxicity problems, and on such soils fertilizers and lime amendments are essential for achieving improved crop yields. Fertilizer inputs are increasing cost of production of farmers, and there is a major concern for environmental pollution due to excess fertilizer inputs. Higher demands for food and fiber by increasing world populations further enhance the importance of nutrient efficient cultivars that are also higher producers. Nutrient efficient plants are defined as those plants, which produce higher yields per unit of nutrient, applied or absorbed than other plants (standards) under similar agroecological conditions. During the last three decades, much research has been conducted to identify and/or breed nutrient efficient plant species or genotypes/cultivars within species and to further understand the mechanisms of nutrient efficiency in crop plants. However, success in releasing nutrient efficient cultivars has been limited. The main reasons for limited success are that the genetics of plant responses to nutrients and plant interactions with environmental variables are not well understood. Complexity of genes involved in nutrient use efficiency for macro and micronutrients and limited collaborative efforts between breeders, soil scientists, physiologists, and agronomists to evaluate nutrient efficiency issues on a holistic basis have hampered progress in this area. Hence, during the 21st century agricultural scientists have tremendous challenges, as well as opportunities, to develop nutrient efficient crop plants and to develop best management practices that increase the plant efficiency for utilization of applied fertilizers. During the 20th century, breeding for nutritional traits has been proposed as a strategy to improve the efficiency of fertilizer use or to obtain higher yields in low input agricultural systems. This strategy should continue to receive top priority during the 21st century for developing nutrient efficient crop genotypes. This paper over views the importance of nutrient efficient plants in increasing crop yields in modern agriculture. Further, definitions and available methods of calculating nutrient use efficiency, mechanisms for nutrient uptake and use efficiency, role of crops in nutrient use efficiency under biotic and abiotic stresses and breeding strategies to improve nutrient use efficiency in crop plants have been discussed.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors are very appreciative of Dr. C. D. Foy for his excellent peer review of this paper.

Notes

∗ Significant at the 5% probability level.

Log in via your institution

Log in to Taylor & Francis Online

PDF download + Online access

  • 48 hours access to article PDF & online version
  • Article PDF can be downloaded
  • Article PDF can be printed
USD 61.00 Add to cart

Issue Purchase

  • 30 days online access to complete issue
  • Article PDFs can be downloaded
  • Article PDFs can be printed
USD 495.00 Add to cart

* Local tax will be added as applicable

Related Research

People also read lists articles that other readers of this article have read.

Recommended articles lists articles that we recommend and is powered by our AI driven recommendation engine.

Cited by lists all citing articles based on Crossref citations.
Articles with the Crossref icon will open in a new tab.