Plant, Soil and Environment - Online first

Variation in the capacity for organic nitrogen acquisition along the root length of rice and wheatOriginal Paper

Baozhen Li, Paul W. Hill, Emily C. Cooledge, Davey L. Jones, Zhifan Zhang, Yue Xie, Tida Ge, Jianlin Shen

Plant Soil Environ., X:X | DOI: 10.17221/229/2025-PSE  

Oligopeptides constitute an important yet understudied component of soil’s dissolved organic nitrogen (DON) pool, representing a primary breakdown product of proteins. However, the mechanisms of oligopeptide uptake and utilisation by crop roots remain poorly understood in a plant nutrition context. We investigated the rate and spatial uptake pattern of ¹⁴C-labelled alanine and di- to pentapeptides of alanine in wheat and rice under sterile hydroponic conditions. Both species demonstrated the capacity to absorb N through amino acids and oligopeptides, with rice roots showing higher peptide uptake than wheat. Specifically, alanine absorption...