The ecologically relevant genetics of plant-plant interactions.

Interactions among plants have been long recognized as a major force driving plant community dynamics and crop yield. Surprisingly, our knowledge of the ecological genetics associated with variation of plant-plant interactions remains limited. In this opinion article by scientists from complementary disciplines, the international PLANTCOM network identified four timely questions to foster a better understanding of the mechanisms mediating plant assemblages.

Mixing Ability of Intercropped Wheat Varieties: Stability Across Environments and Tester Legume Species.

Cereal-legume intercrops are developed mainly in low input or organic farming systems because of the overyielding and numerous ecosystem services they provide. For this management, little advice is available for varietal choice and there are almost no specific breeding programs. Our study aimed to evaluate the mixing ability of a panel of bread wheat genotypes in intercropping and to assess the impact of environment and legume tester choice on this ability.

Rhizosphere Bacterial Networks, but Not Diversity, Are Impacted by Pea-Wheat Intercropping.

Plant-plant associations, notably cereal-legume intercropping, have been proposed in agroecology to better value resources and thus reduce the use of chemical inputs in agriculture. Wheat-pea intercropping allows to decreasing the use of nitrogen fertilization through ecological processes such as niche complementarity and facilitation. Rhizosphere microbial communities may account for these processes, since they play a major role in biogeochemical cycles and impact plant nutrition.

Plasticity in Vegetative Growth over Contrasted Growing Sites of an F1 Olive Tree Progeny during Its Juvenile Phase.

Climatic changes impact fruit tree growth and severely limit their production. Investigating the tree ability to cope with environmental variations is thus necessary to adapt breeding and management strategies in order to ensure sustainable production. In this study, we assessed the genetic parameters and genotype by environment interaction (GxE) during the early tree growth.

The use of molecular markers for germplasm management in a French olive collection.

With more than 100 accessions, the CBNMP olive collection includes a major part of the French germplasm. We used molecular markers to characterise all accessions and to study genetic relationships between cultivars. Firstly, 497 olive trees were genotyped using 32 RAPD markers.