Abstract:

High yield is an invariable theme in crop science, and the exploration of crop yield potential is a hotspot of crop science researches. While great strides have been made in exploring the breakthrough of crop yield potential, the capability of over-compensation effects was considered to be a potential untouched part for higher grain yield. In this article, the concept, types, functionary effects and mechanisms of crop compensation were commentated, and a broad sense of crop compensation concept was presented on the basis of integrated analysis. Unbalanced changes often taking place in different factors in different hierarchies or same hierarchy, by the function of systemic regulation, some factors could be improved. That is crop compensation. Compensative effects are ubiquitous in crop system, there are not only “gain and loss” compensations in adverse conditions, but also “asynchronous improved” ones in favorable conditions and even sometimes in high yield plant populations. “Gain and loss” compensation was defined as crop could improve some important elements at the cost of depressing or losing its intrinsic performances of some other elements at specific hierarchy. When the crop population and the single plant are almost in perfect harmony, no more gains could be obtained by “Gain and loss” compensation, a new way must be found to break the yield limit. And “asynchronous improved” compensation might be fall back on. In the synchronous improvements of composing elements at specific hierarchy, one lesser improvement of some element might promote a significant improve of other element. This kind of change in crop system was defined as “asynchronous improved” compensation. Once one limited factor was improved, some other factors in crop system might change and a new harmonization at the higher level will be formed, correspondingly the crop yield would increases to a new level. On the basis of crop compensation effects and the “three combination structure” yield theory, two effective approaches, “structural exploration” and “functional exploration”, were put forward and carried out in exploring crop yield potential, and the mechanisms and the application effects of the approaches were expatiated from the overcompensation profile, which would provide an instructive guidance for higher crop yield.

Key words: High crop yield, Compensatory mechanism, Technological measures