Zinc Fact Sheets: Wheat

Zinc: A critical micronutrient for higher yield and better nutritional quality of wheat
Introduction Wheat is the most commonly cultivated crop worldwide, grown on over 240 million hectares of land. Wheat also continues to be the most important food crop for human beings. In most Asian countries, more than 50% of the daily calorie intake comes from wheat. Wheat is Asias second most important staple food crop. Generally, the regions with severe zinc-decient soils are also the regions where zinc deciency in human beings is very common, especially in countries with high consumptions of cereal-based foods. Therefore, there is a great need to improve cereal crops with adequate zinc nutrition. Zinc deciency is also a critical constraint to wheat production. It is widely accepted that soil zinc deciency is the most commonly occurring micronutrient deciency in cereal-cultivated soils, resulting in severe decreases in growth and grain yield (see Figure 1). Nearly 50% of the cultivated soils for wheat production globally are low in plant available zinc. Existence of widespread zinc deciency in soils causes both great economic losses for farmers and signicant decreases in nutritional quality of grain for human beings and livestock. For example, depending on the diethylene triamine pentaacetic acid (DTPA)-extractable zinc concentrations in soils, decreases in wheat grain yield in Central Anatolia due to soil zinc deciency range between 5% to 554%.

Figure 1: Growth of wheat on a zinc-decient calcareous soil in Central Anatolia with and without zinc application

Soil Tests for Zinc Deciency Soil tests are an important tool to collect information on the zinc status of soils. Measurement of DTPA-extractable zinc is the most widely used soil test method to determine zinc status of the soils. Generally, soils containing less than 0.5 ppm DTPA-extractable zinc are classied as potentially zinc-decient. Increases in wheat grain yield (more than 20%) as a result of zinc fertilization have been obtained on soils containing less than 0.25 ppm DTPA-extractable zinc. Various eld tests conducted in India indicate that wheat grown on soils containing less than 0.6 ppm

DTPA-extractable zinc respond positively to zinc fertilization at a rate of 5 kg Zn/ ha (e.g., around 25 kg ZnSO4.7H2O/ha). Under wheat-maize rotation cropping systems in China, there is also an increasing demand for zinc fertilization due to imbalanced nutrition and high depletion of soil zinc by cultivating high-yielding cultivars. Plant Tests and Diagnosis of Zinc Deciency The most characteristic reactions of wheat plants to zinc deciency are reductions in plant height and leaf size. These symptoms are followed by the development of whitish-brown necrotic spots on middle-aged leaves. As the severity of zinc deciency intensies, the necrotic spots spread on the leaves, and the middle parts of the leaves Figure 2: Development of zinc deare often collapsed, showing a scorched apciency symptoms on wheat pearance (see Figure 2). In most cases, the zinc concentration of such zinc-decient leaves is below 10-12 ppm. In wheat, despite presence of some genotypic variation, the critical zinc concentrations of leaves or whole shoot at the vegetative growth stage are generally around 15-17 ppm. In zinc-decient locations, wheat grain zinc concentrations are found to be below 15-20 ppm. Among the wheat species, durum wheat is extremely sensitive to zinc deciency and could be a good indicator for the existence of zinc deciency in a region. Zinc deciency symptoms on plants appear earlier and more severe under water-decient soil conditions. Correction of Zinc Deciency Zinc deciency can be easily corrected by soil application of ZnSO4.7H2O or ZnO. ZnSO4 is the most commonly applied source of zinc to correct the zinc deciency problem in crop plants. Due to its cheaper price, ZnO can also be used as an effective source for zinc fertilization. The rate of soil zinc application varies between 10 to 100 kg ZnSO4.7H20 per hectare. Foliar zinc application is also very effective in addressing zinc deciency. However, in increasing grain yield, soil zinc applications are more effective than the foliar zinc applications. The commonly applied rates of foliar zinc application vary between 2.5 to 10 kg ZnSO4.7H20 per hectare. In the case of increases in grain zinc concentrations, foliar zinc applications are more effective than the soil zinc applications. Currently, increasing grain zinc concentration is an important global challenge in order to minimize zinc deciency-related health problems for over a billion people. Since wheat is inherently very low in grain zinc concentration and growing wheat on zinc decient soils reduces further grain zinc concentrations, application of soil and/or foliar zinc fertilizers to wheat is fundamentally important for both better crop production and better human health.
Sources: Micronutrients in Agriculture, SSSA Books, edited by J.J. Mortvedt, F.R. Cox, L.M. Shuman and R.M. Welch, 1991; Cakmak, I and Braun, H. J. 1999. Zinc deciency and genotypic variation in wheat. In: Applying Physiology to Wheat Breeding.

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