Open Access

ARTICLE

Response of Contrasting Rice Genotypes to Zinc Sources under Saline Conditions

Muhammad Jan^1,*, Muhammad Anwar-Ul-Haq², Talha Javed³, Sadam Hussain^4,*, Ilyas Ahmad⁵, Muhammad Ashraf Sumrah⁶, Javed Iqbal⁷, Babar Hussain Babar⁸, Aqsa Hafeez⁹, Muhammad Aslam⁵, Muhammad Tahir Akbar¹⁰, Marjan Aziz⁶, Khadiga Alharbi¹¹, Izhar Ullah¹²

1 Department of Soil and Environmental Sciences, Ghazi University, Dera Ghazi Khan, 32200, Pakistan
2 Institute of Soil and Environmental Sciences, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, 38040, Pakistan
3 Department of Agronomy, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, 38040, Pakistan
4 College of Agronomy, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, 712100, China
5 Pesticide Quality Control Lab, Multan, Punjab, 59300, Pakistan
6 Barani Agricultural Research Institute, Chakwal, 48800, Pakistan
7 Soil and Water Testing Laboratory for Research, Dera Ghazi Khan, 32200, Pakistan
8 Agronomic Research Institute, Ayub Agricultural Research Institute, Faisalabad, 38000, Pakistan
9 Department of Plant Sciences, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, 45320, Pakistan
10 Soil Fertility (Field), Multan, 59300, Pakistan
11 Department of Biology, College of Science, Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University, P.O.Box 84428, Riyadh, 11671, Saudi Arabia
12 Queensland University of Technology, Queensland, Australia

* Corresponding Authors: Muhammad Jan. Email: ; Sadam Hussain. Email:

(This article belongs to this Special Issue: Agricultural Intensification, Climate Change, and Food Security)

Phyton-International Journal of Experimental Botany 2023, 92(5), 1361-1375. https://doi.org/10.32604/phyton.2023.026620

Received 16 September 2022; Accepted 24 November 2022; Issue published 09 March 2023

Abstract

Abiotic stresses are among the major limiting factors for plant growth and crop productivity. Among these, salinity is one of the major risk factors for plant growth and development in arid to semi-arid regions. Cultivation of salt tolerant crop genotypes is one of the imperative approaches to meet the food demand for increasing population. The current experiment was carried out to access the performance of different rice genotypes under salinity stress and Zinc (Zn) sources. Four rice genotypes were grown in a pot experiment and were exposed to salinity stress (7 dS m⁻¹), and Zn (15 mg kg⁻¹ soil) was applied from two sources, ZnSO₄ and Zn-EDTA. A control of both salinity and Zn was kept for comparison. Results showed that based on the biomass accumulation and K⁺/Na⁺ ratio, KSK-133 and BAS-198 emerged as salt tolerant and salt sensitive, respectively. Similarly, based on the Zn concentration, BAS-2000 was reported as Zn-in-efficient while IR-6 was a Zn-efficient genotype. Our results also revealed that plant growth, relative water content (RWC), physiological attributes including chlorophyll contents, ionic concentrations in straw and grains of all rice genotypes were decreased under salinity stress. However, salt tolerant and Zn-in-efficient rice genotypes showed significantly higher shoot K⁺ and Zn concentrations under saline conditions. Zinc application significantly alleviates the harmful effects of salinity by improving morpho-physiological attributes and enhancing antioxidant enzyme activities, and the uptake of K and Zn. The beneficial effect of Zn was more pronounced in salt-tolerant and Zn in-efficient rice genotypes as compared with salt-sensitive and Zn-efficient genotypes. In sum, our results confirmed that Zn application increased overall plant’s performance under saline conditions, particularly in Zn in-efficient and tolerant genotypes as compared with salt-sensitive and Zn efficient rice genotypes.

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