Iron nutrition, biomass production, and plant product quality

• Fe deficiency alters the photosynthetic apparatus and promotes its remodeling.
• Fe is a limiting factor for biomass production and for plant product quality.
• Knowledge-based improvement of Fe nutrition can remediate deficiency on calcareous soils.
• Fe biofortification of edible parts of crops improves the human diet.

One of the grand challenges in modern agriculture is increasing biomass production, while improving plant product quality, in a sustainable way. Of the minerals, iron (Fe) plays a major role in this process because it is essential both for plant productivity and for the quality of their products. Fe homeostasis is an important determinant of photosynthetic efficiency in algae and higher plants, and we review here the impact of Fe limitation or excess on the structure and function of the photosynthetic apparatus. We also discuss the agronomic, plant breeding, and transgenic approaches that are used to remediate Fe deficiency of plants on calcareous soils, and suggest ways to increase the Fe content and bioavailability of the edible parts of crops to improve human diet.