Dunn, J., Hunt, L. orcid.org/0000-0001-6781-0540, Afsharinafar, M. et al. (6 more authors) (2019) Reduced stomatal density in bread wheat leads to increased water-use efficiency. Journal of Experimental Botany, 70 (18). pp. 4737-4748. ISSN 0022-0957
Abstract
Wheat is a staple crop, frequently cultivated in water-restricted environments. Improving crop water-use efficiency would be desirable if grain yield can be maintained. We investigated whether a decrease in wheat stomatal density via the manipulation of epidermal patterning factor (EPF) gene expression could improve water-use efficiency. Our results show that severe reductions in stomatal density in EPF-overexpressing wheat plants have a detrimental outcome on yields. However, wheat plants with a more moderate reduction in stomatal density (i.e. <50% reduction in stomatal density on leaves prior to tillering) had yields indistinguishable from controls, coupled with an increase in intrinsic water-use efficiency. Yields of these moderately reduced stomatal density plants were also comparable with those of control plants under conditions of drought and elevated CO2. Our data demonstrate that EPF-mediated control of wheat stomatal development follows that observed in other grasses, and we identify the potential of stomatal density as a tool for breeding wheat plants that are better able to withstand water-restricted environments without yield loss.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2019 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Experimental Biology. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | Cereals; drought; photosynthesis; stomata; water-use efficiency; wheat |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > School of Biosciences (Sheffield) > Department of Animal and Plant Sciences (Sheffield) The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > School of Biosciences (Sheffield) > Department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (Sheffield) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council BB/N004167/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 06 Oct 2020 13:11 |
Last Modified: | 07 Oct 2020 14:45 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Oxford University Press (OUP) |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1093/jxb/erz248 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:165864 |
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