The significance of nutrient interactions for crop yield and nutrient use efficiency

Abstract Biomass production of crops and the quality of yield are depending on a sufficient and balanced uptake of nutrients. Improving the nutrient use efficiency (NUE) of crops by breeding will be essential to optimize the use of fertilizers and minimize the environmental footprint of modern agriculture. Nutrients interact in many different ways in plants and these interactions can be of synergistic or antagonistic kind, depending on the chemical properties of the nutrients and on their role in plant metabolism. Consequently, certain crop traits have the potential to increase the use efficiency for several nutrients at the same time, while other traits might lead to an increase for one but a decrease for another nutrient. These trade-offs need attention for an overall improvement of NUE. This chapter summarizes the main categories of nutrient interactions on a plant and cellular level, and reviews some of the most recent advances in this field of research. It then scales these processes up and characterizes some of the most promising crop traits for improvement of NUE toward their relation to nutrient interactions.