Volume 14, Issue 56, 2025 (October – December)
Research Article
Micronutrient Dynamics of Zinc and Iron in Soil and Foliar Applications for Wheat Biofortification
Abhijeet, S.R. Bhunia, Mahaveer Parsad Ola, Arjun Lal Choudhary, Khubi Poonia , Sonali Pal and Ankit Kumar
Keywords: Agronomic biofortification, zinc, iron, wheat, yield, grain quality, foliar spray, soil application
DOI:10.37273/chesci.cs312056085
Full Text – PDF
Abstract
Foliar or soil spray-on provision of micronutrients, or agronomic biofortification, is a viable means of increasing wheat grain concentrations of iron (Fe) and zinc (Zn) and potentially having effects on grain quality and the research question of the current paper was as follows: What were the effects of various combinations of soil application, zinc and iron at recommended dose of fertilizer, and foliar sprays of oxide s of zinc and iron (ZnSO4) and iron (FeSO4) on a wheat development, their yield and contents of iron and zinc in a grain. Combinations of RDF (T1), RDF (T2), RDF + water spray (T3), RDF + ZnSO4 soil application (T4), RDF + ZnSO4 foliar spray at tillering (T5), combined soil + foliar Zn (T6), RDF + FeSO4 soil application (T7), RDF + FeSO4 foliar spray (T8), combined soil + foliar Fe (T9) and RDF + combined soil Zn + Fe (T10) and RDF + foliar Zn + Fe (T11) yield. Three replications and randomized block design were used by the design of the experiment. Noticeable observations were traits such as plant height, tiller density, biomass, grain yield, harvest index, grain protein contents and contents of Iron and Zinc. In statistical testing, ANOVA and the respective mean separation-tests were adopted.
RDF can only hope to improve the pre-existing yield, but (T6, T9, T10, T11) the combination of soil + foliar integrated Zn/Fe treatments with RDF has the potential to bring about the greatest enhancement in grain Fe and Zn concentration and possibly lead to an enhancement in the yield parameters. The research was giving recommendations on cost effective agronomic measures of improving wheat nutritive value.
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