Studies on Genetic Male-Sterile Soybeans : IV. Effect of Male Sterility and Source of Nitrogen Nutrition on Accumulation, Partitioning, and Transport of Nitrogen.

Soybean (Glycine max [L.] Merr.) germplasm, isogenic except for loci controlling male sterility (ms(1)) and nodulation (rj(1)), was used to investigate the effects of reproductive tissue development and source of nitrogen nutrition on accumulation, transport, and partitioning of nitrogen in a greenhouse experiment. Nodulated plants were supplied nitrogen-free nutrient solution, and nonnodulated plants were supplied nutrient solution containing 20 millimolar KNO(3). Plants were sampled from flowering until maturity (77 to 147 days after transplanting).Accumulation rates of nitrogen in whole plants during reproductive growth were not significantly different among the four plant types. Nitrogen accumulation in the sterile, nonnodulated plants, however, ceased 2 weeks earlier than in fertile, nonnodulated or fertile and sterile, nodulated plants. This early cessation in nitrogen accumulation resulted in sterile, nonnodulated plants accumulating significantly less whole plant nitrogen by 133 days after transplanting (DAT) than fertile, nonnodulated plants. Thus, changing the site of nitrogen assimilation from nodules (N(2)-fixing plants) to roots and leaves (NO(3)-fed plants) resulted in similar whole-plant nitrogen accumulation rates in fertile and sterile plants, despite the absence of seed in the latter.Leaflet and stem plus petiole tissues of both types of sterile plants had significantly higher nitrogen concentrations after 119 DAT than both types of fertile plants. Significantly higher concentrations and exudation rates of nonureide, reduced-nitrogen in xylem sap of sterile than of fertile plants after 105 DAT were observed. These latter results indicated possible cycling of nonureide, reduced-nitrogen from the downward phloem translocation stream to the upward xylem translocation stream in roots of sterile plants. Collectively, these results suggest a lack of sinks for nitrogen utilization in the shoots of sterile plants. Hence, comparison of nitrogen accumulation rates for sterile and fertile plants does not provide a definitive test of the hypothesis that reproductive tissue development limits photosynthate availability for support of N(2) fixation and nitrate assimilation in determinate soybeans.Nitrogen assimilation during reproductive growth met a larger proportion of the reproductive-tissue nitrogen requirement of nitrate-dependent plants (73%) than of N(2)-fixing plants (63%). Hence, vegetative-tissue nitrogen mobilization to reproductive tissue was a more prominent process in N(2)-fixing than in nitrate-dependent plants. N(2)-fixing plants partitioned nitrogen to reproductive tissue more efficiently than nitrate-dependent plants as the reproductive tissues of the former and latter contained 65 and 55%, respectively, of the whole-plant nitrogen at the time that nitrogen accumulation in reproductive parts had ceased (133 DAT).