Abstract:
With an increasing population and limited food supply, hidden hunger is becoming a serious problem for agricultural experts. Almost half of the world's population suffers from micronutrient malnutrition, especially Zn and Fe. In developing countries, most of the population relies on cereal crops like wheat, rice, and maize for their daily diet. To address this problem, biofortification was practiced to evaluate the role of micronutrients zinc (Zn) and iron (Fe) on the growth and yield parameters of maize. Sole and combined application of ZnSO4 and FeSO4 was done to study the vegetative growth and agronomic yield parameters of maize. An experiment of total field area (12×20 ft2) was laid out in RCBD (Randomized Complete Block Design) at Seed Center, Institute of Botany, University of the Punjab, Lahore, with two replications and four treatments in two maize cultivars (30T60, P4040). The treatments consisted of T1 (Control), T2 (ZnSO4.7H2O), T3 (ZnSO4.7H2O+ FeSO4.7H2O) and T4 (FeSO4.7H2O). It was evaluated that on the application of combined zinc sulphate and iron sulphate, vegetative parameters, leaf length (cm), plant height (cm), yield per plot (g), chlorophyll content (mg/g), carotenoid content (mg/g), ash content (%) and dry matter content (%) were enhanced in comparison to control. It is suggested that the biofortification of maize with zinc and iron is an effective approach to enhance vegetative growth and agronomic yield.
Page(s):
201-201
DOI:
DOI not available
Published:
Journal: Abstract Book on Second International Conference on Recent Approaches in Plant Sciences (RAPS-23) 4-5 May 2023 , Volume: 0, Issue: 0, Year: 2023
Keywords:
micronutrients
,
yield
,
Growth
,
Biofortification
,
Zinc
,
Iron