The impact of soil compaction monitored by DNA markers in barley

Anotace: Plants are often exposed to adverse environmental conditions that can significantly interfere with their genomic response. Soil compaction induced by heavy field machinery represents a major problem for crop production mainly due to restricted root growth and penetration into soil and therefore reduced water and nutrient uptake by the plants. A long term field scale experiment was established in 2009 where different levels of soil compaction are researched from the soil and crop point of view. The effect of soil compaction was analysed by four different DNA-based markers corresponding to miRNA sequences (hvu-miR156, hvu-miR399, hvu-miR408 and hvu-miR827), within the leaf, stem and root tissues of barley plants. Our preliminary study showed that due to soil compaction were the barley plants exposed to the lack of moisture which subsequently affected the intake and utilization of nutrients from the soil and showed lower plant growth parameters and reduced yields. Moreover, this genome response was tissue-specific, where the most affected part of the plant by dehydration, were roots and lack of nutrient supply was most pronounced on leaves.