Weed suppression greatly increased by plant diversity in intensively managed grasslands: A continental-scale experiment.

Grassland diversity can support sustainable intensification of grassland production through increased yields, reduced inputs and limited weed invasion. We report the effects of diversity on weed suppression from 3 years of a 31-site continental-scale field experiment.At each site, 15 grassland communities comprising four monocultures and 11 four-species mixtures based on a wide range of species' proportions were sown at two densities and managed by cutting. Forage species were selected according to two crossed functional traits, "method of nitrogen acquisition" and "pattern of temporal development".Across sites, years and sown densities, annual weed biomass in mixtures and monocultures was 0.5 and 2.0 t  DM ha-1 (7% and 33% of total biomass respectively). Over 95% of mixtures had weed biomass lower than the average of monocultures, and in two-thirds of cases, lower than in the most suppressive monoculture (transgressive suppression). Suppression was significantly transgressive for 58% of site-years. Transgressive suppression by mixtures was maintained across years, independent of site productivity.Based on models, average weed biomass in mixture over the whole experiment was 52% less (95% confidence interval: 30%-75%) than in the most suppressive monoculture. Transgressive suppression of weed biomass was significant at each year across all mixtures and for each mixture.Weed biomass was consistently low across all mixtures and years and was in some cases significantly but not largely different from that in the equiproportional mixture. The average variability (standard deviation) of annual weed biomass within a site was much lower for mixtures (0.42) than for monocultures (1.77). Synthesis and applications. Weed invasion can be diminished through a combination of forage species selected for complementarity and persistence traits in systems designed to reduce reliance on fertiliser nitrogen. In this study, effects of diversity on weed suppression were consistently strong across mixtures varying widely in species' proportions and over time. The level of weed biomass did not vary greatly across mixtures varying widely in proportions of sown species. These diversity benefits in intensively managed grasslands are relevant for the sustainable intensification of agriculture and, importantly, are achievable through practical farm-scale actions.

Growth rate rather than growth duration drives growth heterosis in maize B104 hybrids.

Research in maize is often performed using inbred lines that can be readily transformed, such as B104. However, because the B104 line flowers late, the kernels do not always mature before the end of the growing season, hampering routine seed yield evaluations of biotech traits introduced in B104 at many geographical locations. Therefore, we generated five hybrids by crossing B104 with the early-flowering inbred lines CML91, F7, H99, Mo17, and W153R and showed in three consecutive years that the hybrid lines proved to be suitable to evaluate seed yield under field conditions in a temperate climate. By assessing the two main processes driving maize leaf growth, being rate of growth (leaf elongation rate or LER) and the duration of growth (leaf elongation duration or LED) in this panel of hybrids, we showed that leaf growth heterosis was mainly the result of increased LER and not or to a lesser extent of LED. Ectopic expression of the transgenes GA20-oxidase (GA20-OX) and PLASTOCHRON1 (PLA1), known to stimulate the LER and LED, respectively, in the hybrids showed that leaf length heterosis can be stimulated by increased LER, but not by LED, indicating that LER rather than LED is the target for enhancing leaf growth heterosis.

Altered expression of maize PLASTOCHRON1 enhances biomass and seed yield by extending cell division duration.

Maize is the highest yielding cereal crop grown worldwide for grain or silage. Here, we show that modulating the expression of the maize PLASTOCHRON1 (ZmPLA1) gene, encoding a cytochrome P450 (CYP78A1), results in increased organ growth, seedling vigour, stover biomass and seed yield. The engineered trait is robust as it improves yield in an inbred as well as in a panel of hybrids, at several locations and over multiple seasons in the field. Transcriptome studies, hormone measurements and the expression of the auxin responsive DR5rev:mRFPer marker suggest that PLA1 may function through an increase in auxin. Detailed analysis of growth over time demonstrates that PLA1 stimulates the duration of leaf elongation by maintaining dividing cells in a proliferative, undifferentiated state for a longer period of time. The prolonged duration of growth also compensates for growth rate reduction caused by abiotic stresses.

Overexpression of GA20-OXIDASE1 impacts plant height, biomass allocation and saccharification efficiency in maize.

Increased biomass yield and quality are of great importance for the improvement of feedstock for the biorefinery. For the production of bioethanol, both stem biomass yield and the conversion efficiency of the polysaccharides in the cell wall to fermentable sugars are of relevance. Increasing the endogenous levels of gibberellic acid (GA) by ectopic expression of GA20-OXIDASE1 (GA20-OX1), the rate-limiting step in GA biosynthesis, is known to affect cell division and cell expansion, resulting in larger plants and organs in several plant species. In this study, we examined biomass yield and quality traits of maize plants overexpressing GA20-OX1 (GA20-OX1). GA20-OX1 plants accumulated more vegetative biomass than control plants in greenhouse experiments, but not consistently over two years of field trials. The stems of these plants were longer but also more slender. Investigation of GA20-OX1 biomass quality using biochemical analyses showed the presence of more cellulose, lignin and cell wall residue. Cell wall analysis as well as expression analysis of lignin biosynthetic genes in developing stems revealed that cellulose and lignin were deposited earlier in development. Pretreatment of GA20-OX1 biomass with NaOH resulted in a higher saccharification efficiency per unit of dry weight, in agreement with the higher cellulose content. On the other hand, the cellulose-to-glucose conversion was slower upon HCl or hot-water pretreatment, presumably due to the higher lignin content. This study showed that biomass yield and quality traits can be interconnected, which is important for the development of future breeding strategies to improve lignocellulosic feedstock for bioethanol production.