Diagnostic Rye Ionomics (DRI)

• Applicant: Konrad Neugebauer, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Plant Cultivation, Plant Nutrition, Agricultural Technology
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 558446785

The functional ionome of a plant describes its elemental composition with regard to essential plant mineral nutrients. Functional ionomes of plants are determined by environmental factors including nutrient deficiency and water supply and differ among plant species. This is due to the species-specific uptake, storage, and remobilization of nutrients. The characterization of functional ionomes forms the basis for diagnostic applications during the juvenile development of plants, both in crop production and plant breeding. Although functional ionomes for specific nutrient deficiencies have recently been established for some crop species, little is known about the impact of simultaneous drought stress on diagnostic ionomes. This knowledge gap is increasingly relevant as the use of mineral fertilizers in plant production is becoming increasingly restricted and periods of drought are occurring more frequently due to climate change. Diagnostic ionomes of rye (Secale cereale L.) have not yet been characterized, although rye is often grown on soils with low availability of water and nutrients such as nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K). The aim of the proposed project is to fill these gaps. In this project, diagnostic rye ionomes for the nutrient deficiencies N, P, and K will be defined under contrasting water supply for the first time. Our understanding of the underlying processes, that shape characteristic ionomes, will be fundamentally expanded through chemical analyses of individual plant organs and high-resolution spatial quantification of nutrients in different leaf tissues. For this purpose, experiments will initially be conducted under controlled environmental conditions. The basic knowledge will then be validated under field conditions. Four long-term field trials were identified at the Thyrow experimental field station of the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, in which specific nutrient deficiencies were induced through decades of differentiated fertilization. Joint statistical analyses of the four selected long-term field trials are possible due to common linking treatments across all trials. Detailed soil analyses of the field experiments are planned in addition to chemical plant analyses. This will enable the validation of the newly established diagnostic ionomes with and without simultaneous drought stress. In summary, this project will expand our basic understanding of nutrient uptake, storage, and remobilization under different environmental conditions using an under-researched crop species that is highly relevant for future cropping systems. The newly gained mechanistic insights will be validated and thus form a solid basis for applications in plant cultivation and plant breeding.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants