NONSTRUCTURAL CARBOHYDRATE - ANALYSIS BY NEAR-INFRARED REFLECTANCE SPECTROSCOPY AND ITS IMPORTANCE AS AN INDICATOR OF PLANT-GROWTH

Plant shoot samples are frequently analysed to assess if crops require additional nitrogen or mineral elements to maintain satisfactory growth. If plant growth is limited by temperature, water stress, disease, lodging or a mineral deficiency, non-structural carbohydrates (NSC) may be accumulated in, or depleted from, tissues especially those in the lower stems. Plant testing laboratories do not routinely analyse NSC to assist in the identification of plant stress probably because skilled technicians and time are required for the wet chemical determination. In this paper we report that routine determination of NSC is possible using near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy; the errors of determination are comparable with traditional chemical methods. The concentration of NSC in the shoots of rice grown in south eastern Australia ranges from 1.6 to 22.8%, as starch. In the shoots of wheat grown in eastern Australia the range is from 2.4 to 35.2%, as fructans. In both crops the NSC content is highly inversely correlated with the shoot nitrogen content. Based on data from commercial wheat and rice crops we suggest that the ratio between nitrogen and NSC can be used to identify crops in which growth has been limited by a stress other than nitrogen and so are unlikely to show the predicted response to an application of nitrogen fertilizer.