Crop species present different qualitative types of response to N deficiency during their vegetative growth

Crops respond to N deficiency through a reduction in resource capture and/or resource use efficiency. The objective of this paper is to examine whether differences in this response pattern are associated with either metabolic group (C3 vs. C4) or botanical classification (mono- vs. dicotyledons). Hereto, we analysed the effect of N deficiency on the relationships between N uptake, LAI, and biomass accumulation, for maize, sorghum, wheat, canola, tall fescue, and sunflower, grown in experiments in either France or Australia. Maize and tall fescue maintained LAI per unit biomass (measure of resource capture) at the expense of N uptake per unit LAI (measure of resource use efficiency). Wheat and canola had the opposite response, whereas sunflower and sorghum were intermediate. In general, C4 species reduced N uptake per unit LAI more than C3 species. Species differences in the effect of N deficiency on resource use efficiency were associated with differences in the SLN or in the N storage capacity of the stems. For wheat, canola, and tall fescue, SLN declined with increasing LAI under high N conditions, and the minimum crop SLN under N deficiency was only marginally lower than under high N conditions. For sorghum, sunflower, and maize, crop SLN under high N changed little with increasing LAI, but the minimum crop SLN under N deficiency was considerably lower than under high N. Sorghum and maize were the only species that substantially decreased stem N uptake per unit LAI under N deficiency. Overall, our data suggest that C3 species are better able to maintain resource use efficiency under N stress than C4 species, and a survey of literature suggests this may be because in C4 species, the critical SLN for radiation use efficiency is higher than the critical SLN for leaf expansion, whereas the opposite is the case for C3 species. We hypothesise that species differences in response to N deficiency could be associated with these differences in critical SLN, which in turn could be a consequence of the lower photosynthetic nitrogen use efficiency of C3 crops.