Analysis of the contribution of acid phosphatase to P efficiency in Brassica napus under low phosphorus conditions.

To understand whether genotypic variation in acid phosphatase (APase) activity in rapeseed (Brassica napus L.) induced by phosphorus (P) deficiency has impact on P efficiency, soil APase activity in the rhizosphere for rapeseed P-efficient genotype 102 and P-inefficient genotype 105 was measured against organic and inorganic P sources in the pot experiment, and the activities of root-secreted APase and leaf intracellular APase were investigated in different P-starvation periods in the nutrient solution. Higher activity of root-secreted APase in B. napus was induced under low P conditions. However, P nutrition and P uptake efficiency of the plants supplied with organic P were not directly related to the activity of root-secreted APase due to several confounding factors affecting APase availability. The higher activity of leaf APase improved P remobilization in plants and played important roles in enhancing P use efficiency, shown by the significant correlation between leaf APase activity and P use efficiency in a rapeseed recombinant inbred population of 135 lines.