Thesis (MTech (Horticulture))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2017 / Transpiration serves in leaf cooling, maintaining turgor pressure, promoting xylem transport of nutrient solutes from roots to shoots and delivering mobile soil nutrients to root surfaces. Soil availability of nitrogen can modulate transpiration rates, consequently powering nutrient delivery to the root surfaces (‗mass-flow'). Although such knowledge on N-regulation of transpiration is available, it remains unknown, however, whether it is NO3- or NH4+ that regulates transpiration. Given that both nitrogen forms co-occur in soils, it is not known how they interact at varying ratios in modulating stomatal behaviour. To test the functional role of NO3- and NH4+ in regulating water fluxes for mass-flow nutrient acquisition, P. vulgaris L. plants were grown with NO3- or NH4+ placed at one of four distances behind a nylon mesh, which prevented direct root access to nitrogen, whilst control plants intercepted the nitrogen source (Chapter 3). Day- and night-time stomatal conductance and transpiration, measured using Infra-Red Gas Analyser (IRGA) declined in NO3- fed plants with the increased distance behind a nylon mesh, with maximum water fluxes at the closest distance (ca. 0 mm), demonstrating a regulatory role of NO3- on stomata closure. An opposite trend was displayed by NH4+ -fed plants, which indicated the incapacity of NH4+ to down-regulate water fluxes and ammoniacal syndrome at high concentrations.
To test how different [NO3-] and [NH4+] regulate day- and night-time stomatal conductance and transpiration (Chapter 4), P. vulgaris was fed with six concentrations (0, 0.25, 0.5, 1, 2, 4 and 8 mM) of each nitrogen form. A biphasic trend emerged, as postulated in previous studies (Wilkinson et al., 2007; Matimati et al., 2013), characterized by an increase in stomatal conductance and transpiration as [NO3-] increased, attaining a maximum before declining with higher [NO3-]. Plants displayed 2-fold higher photosynthetic rates, 2.2-fold higher stomatal conductance and 2.3-fold higher transpiration rates at 4 mM than at 0.25 mM of [NO3-]. The lowest [NO3-] up-regulated night-time stomatal conductance and transpiration, indicating that NO3- -fed plants opened their stomata at night-time, but reduced night-time water loss at higher [NO3-]. NH4+-fed plants had the incapacity to regulate day- and night-time water fluxes, but rather displayed wilting and stress known as ‗ammoniacal syndrome'. Thus, under NO3- deprived soil conditions P. vulgaris may be opportunistic in their water uptake, transpiring more when water is available in order to draw nutrients through ‗mass-flow'.
This thesis explored and confirmed the functional role of NO3- in regulating day- and night-time water fluxes as a mechanism for increasing ‗mass-flow' acquisition of N and possibly other nutrients, signalling a down-regulation of day-time and night-time water fluxes when [NO3-] is replete (Chapter 3 & 4). Where both NO3- and NH4+ are present in soils, it is the [NO3-] and not [NH4+] that regulated stomatal conductance and transpiration. Since organic nitrogen forms such as amino acids also occur in soils, there is a need for further work on their role in stomatal behaviour. Using amino acids laced with 15N isotopes as a nitrogen source can allow their acquisition and role on stomatal behaviour to be discovered. Current trends in research are focussed around developing real-time in-situ sensing of soil nitrogen status to promote enhanced nitrogen and water use efficiency in agricultural systems. This thesis provides the vital literature on stomatal regulation by [NO3-].
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:cput/oai:localhost:20.500.11838/2679 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Naku, Mandilakhe |
| Contributors | Kambizi, Learnmore, Matimati, Ignatious |
| Publisher | Cape Peninsula University of Technology |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Rights | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/za/ |
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