Enrichment of Rice Grains with Zinc and Iron through Ferti-fortification

摘要

Ferti-forification of rice with Zn and Fe played a pivotal roie in enhancing their content in five cuftivars of rice. The enhanced concentrations of Zn and Fe in staple food, such as rice, could solve the problems of Zn and Fe deficiencies, which are two among the most serious nutritional problems affecting human beings. With this prime objective the present nutrient enrichment investigation was carried out for two consecutive years (2008 anc 2009) at Research Farm of Department of Soils, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana on a loamy sand (Typic Ustochrept) soil. Ail the five cuftivars of rice viz, PR 113, PR 114 PR 115, PR 116 and PAU 201 recorded higher Zn and Fe contents over control in rice, Zn and Fe accumulation in rice (witr-husk) and brown rice (without husk), and their uptake with foliar application of Zn and Fe. Ferti-forification of rice with 0.5 % foliar sprays of Zn and Fe resulted in 7.0 and 8.6% increase in rice yield respectively, over control, Foiiar application of 0,5% Fe significantly increased the yield of rice cuftivars varying from 6.9-10.3 %. irrespective of cuftivars, the results of the present study indicated that 30.8-44.8% increase in Zn concentration and 22,8-38.2 % of Fe concentration was achievable through foliar application of fertiliser sources of Zn (ZnSO4.7H2O) and Fe (FeSO4.7H2O), respectively. The data further showed that foiiar application of 0,5% Fe significantly increased the Fe content of husk and its maximum content was reported in cultivar PAU 201 (432 mg kg~(-1)) followed by PR 115 (382 mg kg~(-1)) with an averaae increase of 378 mg kg~(-1). Brown rice can accumulate higher Zn (47 mg kg~(-1)) than its husk (29 mg kg~(-1)) whereas, rice husk can translocate higher Fe (378 mg kg~(-1)) than brown rice (24 mg kg~(-1)). Our results reported that the rice husk could retain 16 times more Fe than its brown rice (without husk) whoreas, brown rice had 1.6 times, more Zn than its husk part.