Response mechanism of growth and gypenosides content for Gynostemma longipes cultivated at two altitude habitats to fine root morphological characteristics
Fine roots are the critical functional organs of plants to absorb water and nutrients from the soil environment, while the relation between fine root morphological characteristics and yield & quality has received less attention for medicinal plants. Therefore, we investigated the relationship be...
Saved in:
| Published in: | Frontiers in plant science Vol. 14; p. 1143745 |
|---|---|
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , |
| Format: | Journal Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Switzerland
Frontiers Media S.A
30-05-2023
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Get full text |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| Summary: | Fine roots are the critical functional organs of plants to absorb water and nutrients from the soil environment, while the relation between fine root morphological characteristics and yield & quality has received less attention for medicinal plants.
Therefore, we investigated the relationship between fine root morphological characteristics and biomass & gypenosides content. We explored the primary environmental drivers of fine root indicators for
from three provenances cultivated at two altitude habitats.
At the end of the growing season, compared with the low-altitude habitat, the underground biomass of
in the high-altitude habitat increased significantly by 200%~290% for all three provenances. The response of gypenosides content to different altitude habitats varied with provenance and plant organs. The biomass of
strongly depended on the fine root characteristic indicators (
< 0.001), fine root length density, and fine root surface area. Our results also showed that the harvest yield of
could be effectively increased by promoting the growth of fine roots per unit leaf weight (
< 0.001, R
= 0.63). Both fine root length density and fine root surface area had strong positive correlations with soil nutrient factors (R
> 0.55) and a strong negative correlation with soil pH (R
> 0.48). In a word, the growth of
is strongly controlled by the fine root morphological characteristics through the response of fine roots to soil nutrient factors and pH.
Our findings will help to deepen the understanding of the root ecophysiological basis driven by soil factors for the growth and secondary metabolites formation of
and other medicinal plants under changing habitat conditions. In future research, we should investigate how environmental factors drive plant morphological characteristics (e.g., fine roots) to affect the growth & quality of medicinal plants over a longer time scale. |
|---|---|
| Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 Edited by: Luigi Lucini, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Italy Reviewed by: Xiao Ding, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), China; Babar Iqbal, Jiangsu University, China |
| ISSN: | 1664-462X 1664-462X |
| DOI: | 10.3389/fpls.2023.1143745 |