Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 3. (Continued)
Life history
Traits
process:
Competitive interactions with neighbors:
•
offensive abilities against neighbors:
a] allelopathy
b] host for crop and neighboring plant species diseases with self disease
tolerance
•
spatial foraging ability
a] photomorphogenesis:
1] internode elongation for light capture in response to shading
2] canopy architecture
b] rapid exploitation of the local soil space
c] perennial plant foraging: shoot/root; ramet/ortet
•
defensive abilities against neighbors:
a] specialized anti-herbivore, anti-grazing structures
b] chemical repellants and poisons
c] crop mimicry
d] competition avoidance: temporal phase shift of development for
neighbor avoidance
Seed
Genetic:
reproductive
•
mating system matched to optimizing local condition variability:
growth
a] Outcrossing:
1] outcrossing rate optimized for more changeable environments
2] dioecy for more efficient seed production:
- lower local male plant pollen production costs
- lower female plant seed production costs
3] genetic flexibility from monoecious form of dioecious species
4] monoecy or outcrossing rate regulation
5] self-incompatibility mechanisms
b] Selfing
1] self pollination and apomixis for more stable, environments
2] lower seed costs with no pollen production in apomicts
c] optimized balance of self and outcrossing pollination for local
conditions
Plant:
• secondary flowering culms and branches
• prolific seed production under wide range of conditions
• some seed production under stress conditions
• intra-plant resource allocation to seed production
• pollen dispersal (+/-)
• extended, plastic, seed production period maximizes favorable periods;
“anticipates” crop harvest timing
Environment:
•
stress tolerance:
a] flowering in intact plants
b] flowering in injured plants
•
reproductive plasticity: flower number sized to environment
•
flower timed to photoperiod (+/-)
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