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RESEARCH ARTICLE

Quantifying the required Zn uptake to achieve grain Zn biofortification of high-yielding wheat on calcareous soils with low available Zn

Sen Wang https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9793-4472 A B , Zhaohui Wang A C * , Shasha Li A , Chaopeng Diao A , Lu Liu A , Ning Huang A , Ming Huang A , Xiaoli Hui A C , Laichao Luo A , Gang He A C and Hanbing Cao A
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A Key Laboratory of Plant Nutrition and Agri-environment in Northwest China, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, College of Natural Resources and Environment, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, China.

B Guangdong Laboratory for Lingnan Modern Agriculture (Shenzhen Branch), Genome Analysis Laboratory of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Agricultural Genomics Institute at Shenzhen, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Shenzhen, Guangdong 518120, China.

C State Key Laboratory of Crop Stress Biology for Arid Areas, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, China.

* Correspondence to: w-zhaohui@263.net

Handling Editor: Shahid Hussain

Crop & Pasture Science 73(5) 528-536 https://doi.org/10.1071/CP21160
Submitted: 16 March 2021  Accepted: 30 September 2021   Published: 1 December 2021

© 2022 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing

Abstract

Cereal crop Zn biofortification is an effective solution to global human Zn deficiency and is achieved by increasing grain Zn concentration concurrently with yield. However, the desired grain Zn concentration (>40 mg kg−1) is rarely observed for high-yielding wheat on calcareous soils, owing to inadequate Zn uptake or Zn distribution to grain. This study was designed to determine how much Zn uptake or distribution is adequate for Zn biofortification, by considering 123 bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) cultivars grown on calcareous soils with low available Zn (<0.5 mg kg−1) in the field on the southern Loess Plateau, China. Nineteen high-yielding cultivars were identified with similar yields (∼7.0 t ha−1) and various grain Zn concentrations from 9.3 to 26.7 mg kg−1. Adequate Zn distribution to grain was defined as the situation where the Zn harvest index at maturity increased to its maximum of ∼91.0% and straw Zn concentration at maturity decreased to its minimum of ∼1.5 mg kg−1. For each cultivar, the extra Zn in straw above the minimum could be again remobilised to grain and raise grain Zn concentration to its highest attainable level, which was 14.5–31.3 mg kg−1 for the 19 high-yielding cultivars but still <40 mg kg−1. Thus, the current Zn uptake needs to be increased to ≥308 g ha−1 to achieve Zn biofortification on low-Zn calcareous soils. For other wheat production regions, the method established here can also provide the priority measures and quantitative guidelines for Zn biofortification.

Keywords: calcareous soil, cultivar, grain Zn biofortification, high-yielding, quantification, wheat, Zn distribution, Zn uptake.


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