Effects of pollination-prevention on leaf senescence and post-silking nitrogen accumulation and remobilization in maize hybrids released in the past four decades in China

In order to understand the regulation of source-sink relationship on leaf senescence in maize, we investigated the effect of pollination prevention on leaf senescence, post-silking dry matter and nitrogen accumulation and remobilization in different vegetative organs in one landrace and ten representative maize hybrids released between 1973 and 2000 in China. When pollination was prevented by covering silk with paper bags at silking stage, leaf senescence of Nongda 60, Yedan 13, Shendan 7 and Zhengdan 958 was delayed as shown by the remaining green leaf area per plant at maturity. However, pollination-prevention did not have obvious effect on the leaf senescence of Baimaya, Danyu 6, Yedan 2 and Xianyu 335. By contrast, pollination-prevention accelerated the leaf senescence of maize hybrids Zhongdan 2, Danyu13 and Yedan 4. It was found that leaf senescence of the late-released (since 1985) Chinese hybrids tended to be delayed by pollination-prevention, except XY335. From silking to physiological maturity, nitrogen content increased in the stem (plus the sheath, cob, husk, and tassel) and root of the non-pollinated plants. However, there was still a net reduction in leaf nitrogen content. We also found that pollination-prevention reduced leaf nitrogen remobilization efficiency, with genotypic difference and variation between the two years of testing. The results suggested that the response of leaf senescence to pollination-prevention is at least partially due to the change of leaf nitrogen remobilization efficiency. Leaf senescence tended to be delayed if leaf nitrogen remobilization efficiency is highly reduced by pollination-prevention.