Effect of Silicon on Crop Growth, Yield and Quality

Abstract

Silicon (Si) has widely been reported to increase the growth and biomass, yield and quality of a broad range of crops including monocotyledonous crops such as rice, wheat, maize, barley, millet, sorghum and sugarcane that actively take up and accumulate high amounts of Si in their organs and some dicotyledonous crops such as cotton and some vegetable and fruit crops. The yield increment, however, may be attributable not only to the benefi cial effects of Si including growth promotion, lodging resistance and biotic and abiotic stress resistance but also to some indirect effects such as pH adjustment and acquisition of macro-and micronutrients contained in the silicate fertilizers, especially when slags or Si-containing mineral ores are used as sources of silicate fertilizer.

Effect of Silicon Fertilization on Crop Yield Quantity and Quality—A Literature Review in Europe

“…Studies of silicon application to the soil conducted in north-east China in the years 2005–2006 indicated an increase in corn yield by 5.6–10.4% (on average by 7.7%) in comparison with the control variant [ 32 ].…”

“…Studies with application of silicon to the soil conducted in China in the years 2005–2006 showed an increase in tomato yield by 8.7–15.9% (on average by 12.0%) compared with the control treatment [ 32 ]. The studies on tomato were conducted in Brazil with three silicon fertilizers (calcium silicate, potassium silicate, and sodium silicate) in five doses (0, 100, 200, 400, and 800 kg SiO 2 ∙ha −1 ) [ 53 ].…”

“…Foliar application of oligomeric silicic acid and boric acid in onion in the Netherlands in 2003 increased the yield by 10.8% and improved the uniformity of the yield [ 29 ]. In investigations in which silicon was applied to the soil conducted in north-eastern China in the years 2005–2006, cucumber yields grew by 9.35–26.6% (on average by 13.7%) in comparison with the control treatment [ 32 ]. In Poland, the studies evaluated the effect of using sodium (Na 2 SiO 3 ), potassium (K 2 SiO 3 ), calcium (CaSiO 3 ), and ammonium ((NH 4 ) 2 SiO 3 ) silicates added to peat substrate on cucumber yield [ 63 ].…”

Silicon (Si) biochar for the mitigation of arsenic (As) bioaccumulation in spinach ( Spinacia oleracean ) and improvement in the plant growth

“…Recently, Costa et al (2016) also observed that Si concentrations of 0.28 and 0.55 g pot −1 (pots contained 1100 g of tropstrato(r) substrate) yielded the highest stem dry weight of 1.32 and 1.38 g respectively, in passion fruit, compared to 0.81 g of dry weight in the control treatment. Liang et al, (2015) also observed that the effects of Si on plant growth are often complemented by other factors such as pH adjustment and the acquisition of macro/micro nutrients contained in silicate fertilizers. In our study, the addition of SiBC raised the soil pH from 6.83 ± 0.4 in unmodified soil to 8.01 ± 0.1 in SiBC + soil (Table 2) which may have also influence biomass production.…”

Silicon Mechanisms to Ameliorate Heavy Metal Stress in Plants

“…It is the second most abundant element after oxygen [ 1 , 2 ] in soil. Since silicon is an essential element and a plant nutrient [ 3 , 4 ], it has an important role in plant growth, yield [ 3 , 5 , 6 ], photosynthetic properties, chlorophyll contents, and enzyme activity [ 7 – 9 ], especially under stressful conditions [ 1 , 10 ]. Currently, there is no evidence showing the direct role of silicon in plant metabolism.…”