{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,2]],"date-time":"2026-03-02T16:15:51Z","timestamp":1772468151219,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":45,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,2]],"date-time":"2026-03-02T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1772409600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Plant Sci."],"abstract":"<jats:p>Tobacco is a key economic crop, with leaf oil content serving as a critical determinant of leaf quality. To address the limited understanding of mechanisms underlying oil content improvement and the decline in flue-cured tobacco quality caused by long-term reliance on chemical fertilizers, this study integrated field experiments with a machine learning approach. Five treatments with varying organic nitrogen ratios (0%, 10%, 20%, 30%, and 40%) were evaluated at a single experimental site in Hengyang, Hunan. Results indicated that a 30% organic nitrogen ratio significantly enhanced the activity of key lipid metabolism enzymes, promoted the accumulation of lipid metabolites (including cembratriene-diol and sucrose esters), increased glandular trichome density, and improved leaf physical properties such as softness, tensile strength, and thickness, ultimately achieving the highest oil content. Using a robust data augmentation strategy and Recursive Feature Elimination, a Random Forest model was constructed to dissect the complex regulatory network. The model achieved a high predictive accuracy (CV R\u00b2 = 0.819) on the augmented dataset, significantly outperforming the model based on original small-sample data. Feature importance analysis identified petroleum ether extract, cembratriene-diol, leaf softness, reducing sugar, and glandular trichome density as the primary predictors. Significant interactions among these features were also revealed by SHAP dependence plots. These findings provide a theoretical basis for optimizing organic nitrogen application to enhance tobacco leaf oil content and quality in agricultural production.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3389\/fpls.2026.1767538","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,2]],"date-time":"2026-03-02T15:17:41Z","timestamp":1772464661000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Influences of organic nitrogen application ratio on oil content in flue-cured tobacco based on field experiments and a random forest model"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"17","author":[{"given":"Zijun","family":"Sun","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Agriculture, South China Agricultural University","place":["Guangzhou, China"]}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Wanhui","family":"Jiang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Agriculture, South China Agricultural University","place":["Guangzhou, China"]}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Huaiyuan","family":"Li","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Center for Basic Experiments and Practical Training, South China Agricultural University","place":["Guangzhou, China"]}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Yaoxing","family":"Liang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"China Tobacco Guangdong Industrial Co., Ltd.","place":["Guangzhou, China"]}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Xin","family":"Yang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"China Tobacco Guangdong Industrial Co., Ltd.","place":["Guangzhou, China"]}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Chen","family":"Peng","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"China Tobacco Guangdong Industrial Co., Ltd.","place":["Guangzhou, China"]}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Lanjun","family":"Shao","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"China Tobacco Guangdong Industrial Co., Ltd.","place":["Guangzhou, China"]}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Qihang","family":"Yang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"China Tobacco Guangdong Industrial Co., Ltd.","place":["Guangzhou, China"]}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Jijiao","family":"Fu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"China Tobacco Guangdong Industrial Co., Ltd.","place":["Guangzhou, China"]}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Jianjun","family":"Chen","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Center for Basic Experiments and Practical Training, South China Agricultural University","place":["Guangzhou, China"]}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Shiyuan","family":"Deng","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Agriculture, South China Agricultural University","place":["Guangzhou, China"]}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1965","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,2]]},"reference":[{"key":"B1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.3390\/plants10010012","article-title":"Genetic and pharmacological inhibition of autophagy increases the monoubiquitination of non-photosynthetic phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase","volume":"10","author":"Baena","year":"2021","journal-title":"Plants."},{"key":"B2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"881","DOI":"10.1093\/biomet\/asac017","article-title":"Mean decrease accuracy for random forests: inconsistency, and a practical solution via the Sobol-MDA","volume":"109","author":"B\u00e9nard","year":"2022","journal-title":"Biometrika."},{"key":"B3","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"2020","DOI":"10.1111\/nph.19252","article-title":"Simplification of soil biota communities impairs nutrient recycling and enhances above- and belowground nitrogen losses","volume":"240","author":"Bender","year":"2023","journal-title":"New Phytol."},{"key":"B4","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1155\/2024\/7405217","article-title":"Interpreta ble machine learning techniques for an advanced crop recommendation model","volume":"2024","author":"Bouni","year":"2024","journal-title":"J. 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