Impact of Zinc Application on Morphological and Biophysical Parameters of Rice Genotypes in Pot Experiment

Experiment was conducted during Kharif -2015 at ARS, Mugad, UAS, Dharwad (Karnataka), to study Impact of application of ZnSO4 on Morphological, Biophysical traits and seed zinc content of rice genotypes raised in pots. Factorial randomized block design consist of 20 genotypes with combination of two treatments viz., T1: Control (no zinc); T2: Soil application of ZnSO4 (20 kg ha-1 with three replications. Application of zinc significantly increased the plant height (91.5), leaf area (1.812 cm-2 plant-1), number of tillers (20.2 plant-1), total dry weight (52.1 g plant-1), photosynthetic rate (13.1 µmol CO2 m-2 s-1), stomatal conductance (0.27 (µmol m2 s-1), transpiration rate (3.76 mmol H2O m-2 s-1) and seed zinc content (24.4 ppm). Similarly, genotypes also differed significantly. Whereas; interaction did not differed significantly with all these parameters. From the current study, it can be concluded that amending the soil with Zn fertilizer @ 20 kg ha-1 resulted in enhancement of morphological traits and biophysical parameters and seed zinc content of rice.