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Articles

Nitrate Translocation by Detopped Corn Seedlings ¹

^a Department of Soil Science, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina 27607

Five-day-old seedlings of corn (Ze mays L.) grown without nitrate were decapitated and exposed to 0.5 mM KNO₃ or 0.5 mM KCl in aerated solutions at 30 C. Uptake of nitrate, chloride, and potassium was determined by replacing solutions hourly and measuring their depletion. Translocation of these ions and of organic nitrogen was determined by hourly analysis of the vascular exudate. Nitrate reduction was estimated by the difference between nitrate uptake and nitrate recovered in the tissue and exudate. Nitrate uptake exhibited its usual pattern of apparent induction resulting in the development of an accelerated uptake phase. Chloride uptake remained fairly constant throughout the experimental period. Translocation of nitrate increased progressively for at least 7 hours whereas chloride translocation reached a maximum about the 3d hour and then declined to a lower rate than nitrate translocation. Nitrate uptake and translocation were restricted by anaerobiosis, by 20 and 40 C relative to 30 C, and by 0.05 mM 6-methylpurine, an RNA-synthesis inhibitor. Accumulation, reduction and translocation of nitrate had different sensitivities to all these factors. The effect of 0.05 mM 6-methylpurine was more detrimental to nitrate translocation and nitrate reduction than to nitrate uptake.

Ambient nitrate, relative to chloride, enhanced the exudation volume and the translocation of organic nitrogen within 4 hours from initiation of the experiments. Translocation of nitrate and organic nitrogen decreased shortly after removal of external nitrate. The higher rates of organic nitrogen translocation which occurred during nitrate uptake indicates either (a) rapid translocation of amino acids synthesized from the entering nitrate, or (b) an accelerated rate of protein turnover and a resulting enhancement in translocation of endogenous amino acids.

¹ Paper No. 4491 of the Journal Series of the North Carolina Agricultural Experiment Station, Raleigh, N.C. These investigations were supported in part by the United States Atomic Energy Commission, Grant AT-(40-1)-2410.