Chapter 5 - Mineral Nutrition, Yield and Source–Sink Relationships

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This chapter describes the role of nutrients in regulating various plant processes that influences the yield of the plants. The yield of crop plants is controlled by biomass production and its partitioning to harvested plant organs. Biomass production is dependent on photosynthetic activity of leaves, the growth of which is directly dependant on nutrients. Nutrients also act as integral constituents of the photosynthetic apparatus and their supply indirectly controls photosynthesis and leaf senescence via photo-oxidation, hydraulic and hormonal signals as well as by sugar signaling. Nutrients also affect respiration as constituents of the respiratory electron chain and by their influence on the efficiency of respiratory ATP synthesis. The photosynthate partitioning to harvested plant organs is controlled by the ability of these organs to utilize assimilates for growth and storage, i.e., their sink strength, and this too is influenced by nutrient supply. Nutrients play an important role in regulating sink formation, by their effects on flowering, pollination, and tuber initiation, as well as in controlling storage processes in the sink organs. Nutrient supply also modifies endogenous concentrations of phytohormones, which, in turn, regulate sink–source relationships. In higher plants, source and sink organs are physically separated from one another, which makes long-distance transport of photosynthates and nutrients in the phloem from source to sink an essential factor for growth and plant yield.

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