Thorne Sarah J, Hartley Susan E, Maathuis Frans J M
Department of Biology, University of York, York YO10 5DD, UK.
Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2TN, UK.
Plants (Basel). 2021 Apr 20;10(4):814. doi: 10.3390/plants10040814.
Drought stress reduces annual global wheat yields by 20%. Silicon (Si) fertilisation has been proposed to improve plant drought stress tolerance. However, it is currently unknown if and how Si affects different wheat landraces, especially with respect to their innate Si accumulation properties. In this study, significant and consistent differences in Si accumulation between landraces were identified, allowing for the classification of high Si accumulators and low Si accumulators. Landraces from the two accumulation groups were then used to investigate the effect of Si during osmotic and drought stress. Si was found to improve growth marginally in high Si accumulators during osmotic stress. However, no significant effect of Si on growth during drought stress was found. It was further found that osmotic stress decreased Si accumulation for all landraces whereas drought increased it. Overall, these results suggest that the beneficial effect of Si commonly reported in similar studies is not universal and that the application of Si fertiliser as a solution to agricultural drought stress requires detailed understanding of genotype-specific responses to Si.
干旱胁迫使全球小麦年产量降低20%。有人提出施用硅（Si）肥可提高植物对干旱胁迫的耐受性。然而，目前尚不清楚硅是否以及如何影响不同的小麦地方品种，特别是就其固有的硅积累特性而言。在本研究中，确定了不同地方品种在硅积累方面存在显著且一致的差异，据此可将其分为高硅积累品种和低硅积累品种。然后利用这两个积累组的地方品种来研究硅在渗透胁迫和干旱胁迫期间的作用。结果发现，在渗透胁迫期间，硅对高硅积累品种的生长有轻微改善作用。然而，未发现硅在干旱胁迫期间对生长有显著影响。进一步发现，渗透胁迫会降低所有地方品种的硅积累量，而干旱则会增加硅积累量。总体而言，这些结果表明，类似研究中普遍报道的硅的有益作用并非普遍适用，将施用硅肥作为解决农业干旱胁迫的方法需要详细了解基因型对硅的特异性反应。
