Forms of retranslocated nitrogen during leaf senescence and nitrogen deficiency" zur Fortführung der Forschergruppe "Nitrogen uptake, metabolism and remobilization in leaves during plant sensescence"

A more efficient use of soil fertilizer nitrogen (N) requires reduction of N budget surpluses in corp production, which can be achieved by breeding and cultivation of genotypes with more efficient use of N. An improved N efficiency will mainly rely on a higher total N uptake by roots and an efficient retranslocation of N from vegetative to reproductive plant organs during leaf senescence, Since early leaf senescence is favourauble for N retranslocation but decreases photosynthetic activity ans assimilate translocation to roots ans seeds, a fine tuning of leaf senescence in a whole-plant context is required to enhance crop yield. The overall hypothesis of the research proposed here is that an in-depth understanding of the physiological and molecular processes controlling leaf senescence as well as N remobilization and allocation to reproduction organs will allow developing traits for breeding of N-efficient crop genotypes.