Efficiency, economics, and environmental implications of phosphorus resource use and the fertilizer industry in China

Phosphorus (P) is an essential nutrient for crop production and is often in short supply. The necessary P fertilizers are derived from deposits in the lithosphere, which are limited in size and nonrenewable. China is one of the world's largest consumers and producers of P fertilizers. Thus, P resource use efficiency in China has an important impact on the worldwide efficiency of P resource use. This study examined the P fertilizer industry in China in terms of P resource use efficiency, economics, and environmental risk, and explored options for improvement through scenario analysis. P resource use efficiency decreased from a mean of 71% before 1995 to 39% in 2003, i.e., from every 10 kg P in rock material, only 3.9 kg P was used to produce fertilizer, 5.6 kg of the residues were discarded at the mining site, and 0.5 kg was manufacturing waste. The decreased efficiency was caused by increased P rock mining activities, especially from small, inefficient miners. Enhanced mining was supported by local governments and by the growing P fertilizer industry, where high-analysis P fertilizers have fourfold higher gross margins than traditional low-analysis fertilizers. Although the growing fertilizer industry is contributing significantly to the development of some regions, the economic efficiency is still lower than in other countries, e.g., in the USA. The P resource is depleting quickly, and the environmental consequences of inefficient use are serious. The amount of accumulated phosphor gypsum was estimated to be 110 Tg, the amount of deteriorated land reached 475 km(2), and the consumption of ground water was 1.8 billion m(3) per year. The low efficiency and serious environmental risk could be attributed to the numerous small inefficient miners, which were supported by intervention of governmental subsidies and taxes after 1995. This study proved that there is a great deal of room for improvement in the resource use efficiency up to 77% by integrated measures, which need broad cooperation of miners, fertilizer plants, and agriculture

Cloning and Characterization of Disease Resistance Protein RPM1 Genes against Powdery Mildew in Wheat Line N9134

Powdery mildew (Blumeria graminis f. sp. tritici) is one of the most devastating wheat diseases. The wheat line N9134 contains PmAS846 that was transferred to N9134 from wild emmer wheat, and is still one of the most effective resistance genes in China. A full-length wheat RPM1 gene was obtained by rapid amplification of cDNA ends (RACE) based on the up-regulated probe sequence from differentially expressed transcripts during the N9134 and powdery mildew interaction. The gene was named TaRPM1, and the open reading frame (ORF) is 2721 nucleotides and encodes a polypeptide of 907 amino acids with a predicted isoelectric point of 4.86. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that TaRPM1 was highly homologous on both Aegilops tauschii and Triticum urartu at both the nucleotide and protein level. Using real-time quantitative PCR, the TaRPM1 gene expression level in wheat leaves was found to be sharply up-regulated, while the transcript level was lowly induced in the root and stem. Under the powdery mildew treatment, the transcription profile of TaRPM1 was very strongly expressed at 48 hour post inoculation (hpi), which increased again to 96 hpi and reaching a high level at 120 hpi. Based on sequence similarities and positions, we inferred that the TaRPM1 gene was on wheat chromosome 3D. These results suggested that TaRPM1 plays an important role in the mechanism of innate immunity to infection by the powdery mildew pathogen

Molecular cytogenetic identification of a wheat-Thinopyrum ponticum substitution line with stripe rust resistance

Thinopyrum ponticum (2n = 10x = 70) has donated rust resistance genes to protect wheat from this fungal disease. In the present study, the line ES-7, derived from the progeny of the crosses between common wheat cultivar Abbondanza and Triticum aestivum–Th. ponticum partial amphiploid line Xiaoyan784, was characterized by cytological, fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH), genomic in situ hybridization (GISH) and EST-STS marker techniques. Cytological observations revealed that the configuration of ES-7 was 2n = 42 = 21 II. GISH and FISH results showed that ES-7 had two St chromosomes and lacked 5A chromosomes compared to common wheat. The 4A chromosome of ES-7 had small alterations from common wheat. Two EST-SSR markers BE482522 and BG262826, specific to Th. ponticum and tetraploid Pseudoroegneria spicata (2n = 4x = 28), locate on the homoeologous group 5 chromosomes of wheat, could amplify polymorphic bands in ES-7. It was suggested that the introduced St chromosomes belonged to homoeologous group 5, that is, ES-7 was a 5St (5A) disomic substitution line. Furthermore, ES-7 showed highly resistance to mixed stripe rust races of CYR32 and CYR33 in adult stages, which was possibly inherited from Th. ponticum. Thus, ES-7 can be used for wheat stripe rust resistance breeding program

Identification of Sitobion avenae F. resistance and genetic diversity of wheat landraces from Qinling Mountains, China

The aphid Sitobion avenae F. is one of the most harmful pests of wheat growth in the world. A primary field screening test was carried out to evaluate the S. avenae resistance of 527 wheat landraces from Shaanxi. The results indicated that 25 accessions (4.74%) were resistant to S. avenae in the three consecutive seasons, of which accession S849 was highly resistant, and seven accessions were moderately resistant. The majority of S. avenae resistant accessions come from Qinling Mountains. Then, the genetic variability of a set of 33 accessions (25 S. avenae resistant and 8 S. avenae susceptible) originating from Qinling Mountains have been assessed by 20 morphological traits and 99 simple sequence repeat markers (SSRs). Morphological traits and SSRs displayed a high level of genetic diversity within 33 accessions. The clustering of the accessions based on morphological traits and SSR markers showed significant discrepancy according to the geographical distribution, resistance to S. avenae and species of accessions. The highly and moderately resistant landrace accessions were collected from the middle and the east part of Qinling Mountains with similar morphology characters, for example slender leaves with wax, lower leaf area, and high ear density. These S. avenae resistant landraces can be used in wheat aphid resistance breeding as valuable resources

Genetic characterization of cysteine-rich type-b avenin-like protein coding genes in common wheat

The wheat avenin-like proteins (ALP) are considered atypical gluten constituents and have shown positive effects on dough properties revealed using a transgenic approach. However, to date the genetic architecture of ALP genes is unclear, making it impossible to be utilized in wheat breeding. In the current study, three genes of type-b ALPs were identified and mapped to chromosomes 7AS, 4AL and 7DS. The coding gene sequence of both TaALP-7A and TaALP-7D was 855 bp long, encoding two identical homologous 284 amino acid long proteins. TaALP-4A was 858 bp long, encoding a 285 amino acid protein variant. Three alleles were identified for TaALP-7A and four for TaALP-4A. TaALP-7A alleles were of two types: type-1, which includes TaALP-7A1 andTaALP-7A2, encodes mature proteins, while type-2, represented byTaALP-7A3, contains a stop codon in the coding region and thus does not encode a mature protein. Dough quality testing of 102 wheat cultivars established a highly significant association of the type-1 TaALP-7A allele with better wheat processing quality. This allelic effects were confirmed among a range of commercial wheat cultivars. Our research makes the ALP be the first of such genetic variation source that can be readily utilized in wheat breeding