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. 2022 May 26;11(11):1416.
doi: 10.3390/plants11111416.

The Integrative Effects of Biochar and ZnO Nanoparticles for Enhancing Rice Productivity and Water Use Efficiency under Irrigation Deficit Conditions

Omnia M Elshayb  1 , Abdelwahed M Nada  1 , Ahmed H Sadek  2   3 , Sameh H Ismail  3 , Ashwag Shami  4 , Basmah M Alharbi  5 , Bushra Ahmed Alhammad  6 , Mahmoud F Seleiman  7   8
Affiliations

The Integrative Effects of Biochar and ZnO Nanoparticles for Enhancing Rice Productivity and Water Use Efficiency under Irrigation Deficit Conditions

Omnia M Elshayb et al. Plants (Basel). .

Abstract

Water stress is considered one of the most environmental hazards that threaten agricultural productivity. Therefore, two field experiments were conducted to investigate the impact of biochar (6 t ha-1 as soil amendment), ZnO NPs (50 mg L-1 as foliar application), and their combination on growth, yield, and water use efficiency (WUE) of rice grown under four irrigation deficit treatments (i.e., irrigation every 3, 6, 9 and 12 d). The irrigation every 3 d was considered as the control in the current study. For this purpose, biochar was prepared through the pyrolysis of corn stalk and rice husk at 350 °C for 3 h, while sonochemical combined with the precipitation method was used to prepare zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO NPs) from zinc acetate. The morphological structures of the produced biochar and ZnO NPs were characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD), N2 gas adsorption-desorption, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The results exhibited that the combination of biochar alongside ZnO NPs resulted in a positive significant effect on the physiological traits such as chlorophyll content, relative water content, plant height, and leaf area index as well as yield-associated components (i.e., number of panicles m-2, number of filled grain per panicle, 1000-grain weight), and biological and grain yield ha-1 when rice plants were irrigated every 9 days without a significant difference with those obtained from the control treatment (irrigation every 3 d). In conclusion, the combination of biochar and ZnO NPs could be recommended as an optimal approach to maximize both grain yield ha-1 and WUE of rice.

Keywords: biochar; deficit irrigation; productivity; rice; water use efficiency; zinc oxide NPs.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flowchart for the preparation of ZnO NPs.
Figure 2
Figure 2
SEM images of the as-synthesized biochar at low and high magnifications (a) 500 µm; show the homogenous surface of biochar, (b) 100 µm; confirms the good porosity of prepared biochar (c) 20 µm; exhibit that the biochar formed in hollow network structures, respectively.
Figure 3
Figure 3
XRD pattern (a), BET of N2 adsorption-desorption isotherm showing IV type and the measured pore diameters/volumes curve (inset) (b), SEM image (c), and TEM image depicting the particles with sizes ≤ 50 nm (d) of the synthesized ZnO NPs.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Interaction effects between irrigation deficit and applications of BC, ZnO NPs, and their combination treatments on water use efficacy (WUE) during 2019 and 2020 seasons. See Table 5 for abbreviations.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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