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Uptake level
Dingyi Chen, Christopher Franz, Benjamin Larson, Nicolette Neumann,
Taylor Paddock
Introduction
Soil salinity can defined as salt
highly accumulated in the soil,
usually to a toxic level to the
plants. It has recently been the
worldwide problem, since 20% of
total cultivated and 33% of
irrigated agricultural lands in the
world are affected by high salinity.
1
Usually it occurs in arid and
semi-arid area. Unbalance of
evaporation and precipitation in
those areas make water table
drops down and soluble salt in the
water remains in the soil. After for
a long time the salt spread out
almost all area. Other factors,
such as weathering of rocks,
irrigation with saline water, and
heavy reliance on fertilizer as can
be
considered
as
reasons2.
Accumulation of salt in soil causes
osmotic effect so that plants
dehydrate
and
finally
died.
Dehydration is not only the
reason plants die from soil
salinity. Nitrogen deficiency by
Nutrient uptake antagonism is
also another main reason. Excess
content of Chloride uptake from
salinity soil will limit the uptake of
nitrate3. Competition between Cland NO3- usually results in the
prevalence of Cl- in the maize4,
blocking the uptake of Nitrogen.
To better understand how
different salinity level of soil
afflicts nitrogen intake in plant
growth, we decide to use plant Z.
mays, i.e. Maize as a model plant.
We proposed two questions in our
study:
What is the difference of
Nitrogen Uptake on salinity stress
in maize?
Does increasing salt stress
undermine
the
Nitrogen
absorption in maize?
Material and Methods
The reason we choose to use
maize in this study is for its fast
growth and easy cultivation. The
maize
were
grown
in
the
temperature and light controlled
greenhouse in Center for Urban
Horticulture,
University
of
Washington.
Since it is difficult to directly
measure the Nitrogen absorption
in soil, we can use these two
methods to assume the result:
measuring
chlorophyll
content by SPAD Meter
measuring
the
rate
of
photosynthesis (A) by Li-COR and
making a graph like A/Ci Curve.
Nitrogen plays an important
role
in
photosynthesis.
Chlorophyll, one of the main
components in chloroplast, has
Nitrogen in its structure.5 When
the plant lacks of Nitrogen, plants
cannot
synthesize
chlorophyll
they need. Rubisco, an enzyme in
the Calvin Cycle taking part in the
process
of
photosynthesis,
contains huge amount of amino
acid.
If
there
is
Nitrogen
deficiency in plants, the nitrogen
investment can also decline in
Rubisco. The activity of Rubisco
then decrease and affect the
progress of Calvin cycle.
Measuring SPAD and A can
know the growth and health, but
the influx of Nitrogen to maize as
well.
Method
SPAD meter
Li-COR
Manual Measure
Frequency
1/wk
1/wk
1/wk
influence
the
national
and
regional security. This field will be
Reference
[1] Pooja S. et al. 2014. Soil salinity: A serious environmental issue and
plant growth promoting bacteria as one of the tools for its alleviation
Saudi Journal of Biological Sciences
[2] Owens, S 2001. Salt of the Earth: Genetic engineering may help to
reclaim agricultural land lost due to salinisation EMBO Reports
[3] http://www.smart-fertilizer.com/articles/soil-salinity
[4] Mohammad Pessarakli et al. 1999. Handbook of Plant and Crop Stress,
Second Edition.
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorophyll