Agronomic bio-fortification of iron, zinc and selenium enhance growth, quality and uptake of different sorghum accessions

Abstract

Agronomic bio-fortification is one of the main approaches for mitigation of micronutrient shortage in human populations and endorses sustainable production of food and feed. Studies related to agronomic bio-fortification of crops are mainly focused on single or rarely two micronutrients application, and no attempt has made to study the combined effect of zinc (Zn), iron (Fe) and selenium (Se) on forage sorghum. Therefore, this research was accomplished to evaluate the effect of Zn, Fe and Se bio-fortification on diverse sorghum accessions. The field experiments were conducted in a randomised complete block design with a split-plot arrangement. The treatments comprised of Zn (10 mg/L as ZnSO4∙5H2O), Fe (7 mg/L as FeSO4∙7H2O), Se (3 mg/L as SeSO4) and CK (control) were applied to five sorghum accessions: G1 (Y-16), G2 (YSH-166), G3 (YSH-134), G4 (YSS-98) and G5 (YSH-132). According to our results, the sorghum accession G5 showed superiority over all other accessions and produced maximum values of all growth and quality traits except grains number per panicle and 1 000-grain weight. All applied micronutrients (Zn, Fe and Se) enhanced the growth, quality and uptake of nutrients in sorghum accessions. However, Se recorded the highest plant height, stem diameter, 1 000-grain weight and Zn produced the maximum protein, oil and starch contents. Conclusively, it can be concluded that G5 with Se must be used to achieve the optimum values of agronomic traits, while G5 with Zn found more effective to improve the quality traits of sorghum.

Keywords

• sorghum bicolor l. moench
• deficiency
• malnutrition
• bioavailability
• phytate