Metabolic signalling and the partitioning of resources in plant storage organs

Abstract

The most important harvested organs of crop plants, such as seeds, tubers and fruits, are often described as assimilate sinks. They play little or no part in the fixation of carbon through the production of sugars through photosynthesis, or in the uptake of nitrogen and sulphur, but import these assimilated resources to support metabolism and to store them in the form of starch, oils and proteins. Wild plants store resources in seeds and tubers to later support an emergent young plant. Cultivated crops are effectively storing resources to provide us with food and many have been bred to accumulate much more than would be required otherwise. For example, approximately 80% of a cultivated potato plant's dry weight is contained in its tubers, ten times the proportion in the tubers of its wild relatives (Inoue & Tanaka 1978). Cultivation and breeding has brought about a shift in the partitioning of carbon and nitrogen assimilate between the organs of the plant.