Effectiveness of Zinc Coated, Blended and Bio-Activated Zinc Coated Urea to Quality, Biochemical Parameters and Yield in Rice Crop (Oryza sativa L.)

Abstract

M illions of people in the world feeding on cereals like wheat and rice (FAO, 2012). After wheat, rice is utmost imperative essential crop of Pakistan. It contributes approximately 0.6 percent in GDP. During 2018-2019 rice was sown on 2810 thousand hectares with production of 7202 thousand tons (Pakistan Economic Survey, 2018-2019). World's population increasing day by day, therefore, food need is also increasing, while the natural resources are same (United Nations, 2012). Malnutrition is a very popular issue of poor communities and due to reduced bioavailability, micronutrients deficiency is also becoming serious issue (Huang et al., 2002). In the soils of Zinc (Zn) deficient areas, Zn deficiency Abstract | Zinc (Zn) is an important microelement not only for animals, plants but for humans as well. Its importance cannot ignore for the plants to improve overall quality and yield. The overall physiology, quality and biochemical parameters also enhanced with optimum application of Zn. By keeping in mind, the facts, it was hypothesized that the use of ZnO (a cheap source of Zn) impregnated urea for rice may enhance grains (paddy) yield. Three types of urea were prepared including Zn coated, bio-activated Zn coated and Zn blended urea at the 1.5% rate of formulate. The bio-activated Zn coated urea was prepared by inoculating the powdered organic material with Zinc solubilizing bacterium and then this material was mixed with ZnO. This bio-active Zn was coated on urea at 1.5% rates to formulate. Moreover, Zn blended urea was prepared by mixing powder ZnO with urea. The comparative efficacies of different types of Zn impregnated urea were compared with ZnSO 4 to grains yield, physiology and biochemistry of rice under field conditions. The results showed that 1.5% bio-activated Zn (ZnO) coated urea performed better in promoting yield and biochemical parameters. About 15 to 20% increase was observed in yield physical, biochemical and quality parameters. This suggests that the application of bio-activated Zn coated urea @ 1.5% is greatly active in enhancing quality and yield of rice crop.

Enhancements in yield, agronomic, and zinc recovery efficiencies of rice-wheat system through bioactive zinc coated urea application in Aridisols

“…Moreover, BAZU (T 4 ) responsive yield increments might also have resulted from the higher Zn uptake [29] and recovery along with improved agronomic efficiencies (Figs 3 and 4). Previous studies also witnessed the bio-active Zn coated urea-based enhancement in morphological, yield, and quality parameters of rice [59,60]. However, in contrast to previous studies, the rice paddy and wheat grain Zn concentrations were increased by Zn application through both ZnSO 4 (T 2 ) and BAZU (T 3 and T 4 ) sources, but the increments noted with BAZU (T 4 ), were superior to the rest of the treatments (Fig 2).…”

Effectiveness of Bio-Activated Zinc Coated Urea (Engro Zabardast Urea) for Growth, Yield, and Biochemical Parameters of Rice Crop (Oryza sativa L.)

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I n the 820 million people of the world, malnourishment had been observed (https://www. wfp.org/) and food security is a major challenge of 21 th century (Nazir et al, 2021) because of world's population is increasing very sharply. Micronutrients deficiency is well documented not only in plants, Abstract | Zinc (Zn) bio-fortification is an effective, low-cost in grains of staple food like rice and wheat and possible choice to reduce/decrease the Zn deficiency among humans of poor world.

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“…Husain et al (2012) and his coworkers stated that, in poor countries, cereals are commonly grown in those soils which has less inherent Zn in soils. The Zn enhancement in the edible portion of cereals (rice, wheat and maize) is an economical and feasible approach to enhance Zn contents of low-income population (Mayer et al, 2008); this purpose of enhancing Zn in cereal grains can be achieved through bio-fortification process (Prasad, 2010;Nazir et al, 2021). Genetic engineering and conventional breeding methods can be used for biofortification of Zn but these approaches are less effective, time consuming and costly (Pfeifer et al, 2007).…”

“…Thus, to encourage the growers for application of Zn in poor or developing countries, the improvement in efficiency of soil zinc can be seen with Zn application in soils. In other words, we can say that they are reluctant to use Zn due to many marketing, availability and cost issues (Nazir et al, 2021). On the other hand, the calcareous soils have less efficiency of Zn (Bun-Quin et al, 2017), The Zn make complexes in the calcareous soils and became unavailable to the plants (Alloway, 2009), Zn fertilizers application have tendency to be converted into insoluble forms of Zn in alkaline calcareous soils, as it has low organic matter and high pH of soil.…”

“…It also reduces the costs of Zn fertilizers. Nazir et al (2021) has been observed that this permeated fertilizer would save the labor costs for the application of biofertilizers, urea and zinc individually. Hussain et al (2020) reported the coating of urea with bioactivated ZnO to support cereal yield, physiology and growth of crop.…”