Recent achievements and new research opportunities for optimizing macronutrient availability, acquisition, and distribution for perennial fruit crops
Citation
Kalcsits, L., Lotze, E., Tagliavini, M., Hannam, K.D., Mimmo, T., Neilsen, D., Neilsen, G., Atkinson, D., Biasuz, E.C., Borruso, L., Cesco, S., Fallahi, E., Pii, Y., Valverdi, N.A. (2020). Recent achievements and new research opportunities for optimizing macronutrient availability, acquisition, and distribution for perennial fruit crops, 10(11), http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/agronomy10111738
Plain language summary
Fertilizers are applied to orchards to increase productivity and improve fruit quality. Sometimes, however, fertilizer applications are ineffective. A suite of inter-related factors, including soil chemistry and biology, climate, and the genetics of the rootstock and scion, can cause unpredictable effects of fertilizer applications on orchard productivity and crop quality. In order to prevent fertilizer waste, we need to do a better job of understanding how these factors affect fertilizer uptake and use. This has become more important in recent years because there is a growing public interest in the environmental impact of agriculture. This review paper highlights recent advancements in our understanding of the movement of nutrients through the soil, into tree roots, and from tree roots into the fruit crop. Beneficial soil management practices, such as compost or mulch applications, have been shown to enhance water and nutrient availability and uptake. There has also been significant progress in understanding how roots, microorganisms, and soil interact to enhance nutrient acquisition by tree roots. However, little of this work has been done specifically in orchard crops. That being said, calcium nutrition in apple trees has received a fair amount of interest, because calcium deficiencies play an important role in physiological disorders, such as bitter pit. In order to maximize the production of high quality fruit while making the most efficient use of resources, new approaches are needed to measure and facilitate nutrient-use efficiency in orchard systems.
Abstract
© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).Tree responses to fertilizer management are complex and are influenced by the interactions between the environment, other organisms, and the combined genetics of composite trees. Increased consumer awareness of the environmental impact of agriculture has stimulated research toward increasing nutrient-use efficiency, improving environmental sustainability, and maximizing quality. Here, we highlight recent advancements and identify knowledge gaps in nutrient dynamics across the soil-rhizosphere-tree continuum for fruit crops. Beneficial soil management practices can enhance nutrient uptake and there has been significant progress in the understanding of how roots, microorganisms, and soil interact to enhance nutrient acquisition in the rhizosphere. Characterizing root architecture, in situ, still remains one of the greatest research challenges in perennial fruit research. However, the last decade has advanced the characterization of root nutrient uptake and transport in plants but studies in tree fruit crops have been limited. Calcium, and its balance relative to other macronutrients, has been a primary focus for mineral nutrient research because of its important contributions to the development of physiological disorders. However, annual elemental redistribution makes these interactions complex. The development of new approaches for measuring nutrient movement in soil and plant systems will be critical for achieving sustainable production of high-quality fruit in the future.