Potassium and stress alleviation: Physiological functions and management of cotton

Abstract

Potassium (K) plays a major role in the basic functions of plant growth and development. In addition, K is also involved in numerous physiological functions related to plant health and resistance to biotic and abiotic stress. However, K deficiency occurs widely resulting in poor growth, lost yield, and reduced fiber quality. This review describes the physiological functions of K and its role in stress relief and also provides some agronomic aspects of K requirements, diagnosis of soil and plant K status, and amelioration. The physiological processes described include enzymes and the regulation of organic-compound synthesis, water relations and stomates, photosynthesis, transport, cell signaling, and plant response to drought stress, cold stress, salt stress, as well as biotic stresses. The agronomic aspects of K fertilization include the K requirements of cotton, K uptake, and soil characteristics, genotypic variation in K uptake and use, and characteristics of K deficiency in cotton. In addition, diagnosis and amelioration of K soil and plant status is discussed.

Growth and yield responses in wheat and barley to potassium supply under drought or moderately saline conditions in the south-west of Western Australia

“…Increasing the level of soil exchangeable K by fertiliser application would render more K available to plants for the needs of physiological functions (e.g. photosynthesis and turgor maintenance) and for better root growth under soil-water deficit (Grzebisz et al 2013;Oosterhuis et al 2013). Consistently in the present study, the positive response of wheat growth and grain yield to soil K supply was observed at the drought-affected site but not at the non-stressed sites.…”

“…Fertiliser K supply at Dowerin increased K concentration and content in shoots, total dry matter and grain yield. During soil drying period, the decrease in soil water potential would likely impair K movement to the root surface and reduce plant K uptake (Marschner 1995;Römheld and Kirkby 2010;Oosterhuis et al 2013). On the other hand, soil K deficiency reduces root growth to a greater extent than shoot growth in wheat and barley (Ma et al 2011(Ma et al , 2013, likely attributable to the critical role of K in supplying sucrose from leaves to roots to meet the energy requirements for root growth and ion uptake (Cakmak et al 1994;Marschner et al 1996).…”

The Effects of Fertilization on the Growth and Physiological Characteristics of Ginkgo biloba L.

“…A previous study showed that fertilization with K was causing a decreased allocation to roots, which enables increased growth in height and leaf number [38]. Moreover, the viewpoint that an optimal potassium nutrition status can reduce the effects of abiotic stresses, such as drought, heat, high light intensity, or salinity has been well established [14,39,40]. The characteristic of our study site is coastal sandy saline-alkali soil; thus, K fertilizer is essential in Yellow Sea Forest Park.…”

Effect of Potassium and Sulphur Levels on Yield and Yield Attributes of Popcorn (Zea mays Var. Everta)

“…Potassium due to its impact on many physiological processes plays an important role in water use by crop plants (Grzebisz et al, 2013 andOosterhuis et al, 2013). A main function of K is unloading sugars from chloroplasts to phloem cells, and from phloem cells into storage cells such as grains, (Salisbury and Ross, 1978).…”