Enhancing Drought Tolerance in Wheat Cultivars through Nano-ZnO Priming by Improving Leaf Pigments and Antioxidant Activity

Syed Farhat Abbas, Muhammad Adnan Bukhari, Muhammad Aown Sammar Raza, Ghulam Hassan Abbasi, Zahoor Ahmad (), Mashael Daghash Alqahtani, Khalid F. Almutairi, Elsayed Fathi Abd_Allah and Muhammad Aamir Iqbal
Additional contact information
Syed Farhat Abbas: Department of Agronomy, Faculty of Agriculture and Environment, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Bahawalpur 63100, Pakistan
Muhammad Adnan Bukhari: Department of Agronomy, Faculty of Agriculture and Environment, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Bahawalpur 63100, Pakistan
Muhammad Aown Sammar Raza: Department of Agronomy, Faculty of Agriculture and Environment, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Bahawalpur 63100, Pakistan
Ghulam Hassan Abbasi: Institute of Agro-Industry and Environment, Faculty of Agriculture and Environment, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Bahawalpur 63100, Pakistan
Zahoor Ahmad: Constituent College, University of Central Punjab, Yazman Road, Bahawalpur 63100, Pakistan
Mashael Daghash Alqahtani: Department of Biology, College of Science, Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University, P.O. Box 84428, Riyadh 11671, Saudi Arabia
Khalid F. Almutairi: Plant Production Department, College of Food and Agricultural Sciences, King Saud University, P.O. Box 2460, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia
Elsayed Fathi Abd_Allah: Plant Production Department, College of Food and Agricultural Sciences, King Saud University, P.O. Box 2460, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia
Muhammad Aamir Iqbal: Department of Agronomy, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Poonch Rawalakot, Rawalakot 12350, Pakistan

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 7, 1-15

Abstract: Climate change, global warming, stagnant productivity of wheat and food security concerns owing to frequent spells of drought stress (DS) have necessitated finding biologically viable drought-mitigation strategies. A trial was conducted to test two promising wheat cultivars (Ujala-16 and Zincol-16) that were subjected to pre-sowing priming treatments with different doses of ZnO nanoparticles (NPs = 40, 80, 120 and 160 ppm) under 50% and 100% field capacity (FC) conditions. The ZnO NPs were prepared with a co-precipitation method and characterized through X-ray diffraction (XRD) and with a scanning electron microscope (SEM). For comparison purposes, untreated seeds were sown as the control treatment. The response variables included botanical traits (lengths, fresh and dry wrights of root and shoot), chlorophyll (a, b and total) contents, antioxidant and proline contents and nutrients status of wheat cultivars. The results showed that DS significantly decreased all traits of wheat cultivars, while ZnO NPs, especially the 120 ppm dose, remained superior by increasing all botanical traits at 100% FC. In addition, ZnO NPs increased the chlorophyll a (1.73 mg/g FW in Ujala-16 and 1.75 mg/g FW in Zincole-16) b (0.70 mg/g FW in Ujala-16 and 0.71 mg/g FW in Zincole-16) and total chlorophyll content (2.43 mg/g FW in Ujala-16 and 2.46 mg/g FW in Zincole-16) by improving the activity of antioxidant and proline content. Moreover, plant nutrients such as Ca, Mg, Fe, N, P, K, and Zn contents were increased by ZnO NPs, especially in the Zincol-16 cultivar. To summarize, Zincol-16 remains superior to Ujala-16, while ZnO NPs (120 ppm dose under 100% FC) increases the growth and mineral contents of both wheat varieties. Thus, this combination might be recommended to wheat growers after testing further in-depth evaluation of more doses of ZnO NPs.

Keywords: seed priming; morphology; leaf pigments; antioxidant; nutrient analysis; zinc oxide; drought stress; wheat (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/7/5835/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/7/5835/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:7:p:5835-:d:1109042

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().