Sucrose Synthase (SuSy) plays a crucial role in sugar metabolism mainly in the sink tissues of plants. In sweetpotato, increased SuSy activity has been associated with increased storage root development and correlated with sink strength. However, little is known about the specific variables associated with increased SuSy activity. Evidence from model systems supports the hypothesis that phosphorus (P) starvation is associated with increased accumulation of carbohydrates in roots. In the first study, we measured SuSy gene expression in ‘Beauregard’ sweetpotato grown in a split root system and subjected to the following P treatments: positive control ( / ), negative control (0/0), declining P (-/-), and split P ( /-). The declining P treatment corresponded to 25, 50, 75 and 0% progressive reduction in P and was imposed on days 6, 9, 12, and 15, respectively. A second study was conducted to measure storage root development at 50 days. The (-/-) treatment was associated with increased SuSy activity in developing adventitious starting at 11 days after planting. Moreover, plants grown with the declining P treatment produced storage roots with larger diameter (>2cm) significantly higher than the positive control. Decreased SuSy activity was associated with reduction in storage root number among P-deficient (0/0) plants. Taken together, these results support the hypothesis that P availability in the root zone is associated with sink strength and storage root formation signaling in adventitious roots. These findings can be used to develop tools and management practices to increase P fertilizer efficiency for consistent storage root yields in sweetpotato.
