Influence of phosphorus and nitrogen on photosynthetic parameters and growth in Vicia faba L

The influence of phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N) supply on biomass, leaf area, photon saturated photosynthetic rate (Pmax), quantum yield efficiency (α), intercellular CO2 concentration (Ci), and carboxylation efficiency (CE) was investigated in Vicia faba. The influence of P on N accumulation, biomass, and leaf area production was also investigated. An increase in P supply was consistently associated with an increase in N accumulation and N productivity in terms of biomass and leaf area production. Furthermore, P increased the photosynthetic N use efficiency (NUE) in terms of Pmax and α. An increase in P supply was also associated with an increase in CE and a decrease in Ci. Under variable daily meteorological conditions specific leaf nitrogen content (NL), specific leaf phosphorus content (PL), specific leaf area (δL), root mass fraction (Rf), Pmax, and α remained constant for a given N and P supply. A monotonic decline in the steady-state value of Rf occurred with increasing N supply. δL increased with increasing N supply or with increasing NL. We tested also the hypothesis that P supply positively affects both N demand and photosynthetic NUE by influencing the upper limit of the asymptotic values for Pmax and CE, and the lower limit for Ci in response to increasing N.