Zinc-priming via moringa leaf extract (MLE30) achieved Zn biofortified wheat grains and drought tolerance by efficient anti-oxidant status

Zinc (Zn) malnutrition is a major concern to many crops and human health in terms of food security. In addition to the Zn deficiency, there was also a serious climate threat to wheat cultivation with global warming causing severe droughts. There is a dire need to develop the synergistic use of organic and inorganic stimulants in enhancing tolerance and nutrient uptake under arid zone agricultural environments. Recently, moringa leaf extract (MLE30) obtained prominence emerging as an organic bio-stimulant and its combined use with zinc solution (ZnSO4.7H2O) may have potential results in producing the Zn biofortified wheat grains. Two years of field research trials were planned for improving the tolerance with Zn bio-fortified grains by inducing the Zn application via MLE30 as a novel agronomic biofortification approach in Cholistan's arid environment. The experiments laid out by following the various factors including Zn application techniques having treatments control (dry seed), hydro-priming, Zn-priming MLE30, Zn-foliar MLE30, Zn-soil MLE30; wheat cultivars having Ghazi-2019, Zincol-2016; terminal drought stress having treatments normalCondition (irrigation was applied at tillering, booting, grain formation, milking stages), terminal droughtTillering, terminal droughtMilking in experimental research area, Arid Zone Research Institute, Bahawalpur, Pakistan during the winter season 2021-2022 and 2022-2023. A randomized complete block design was used with three factorial designs and replicated thrice. Data revealed the significant interaction of applied various treatments of Zn with MLE30 in wheat cultivars under terminal drought conditions during both years of trials. It was observed that Zn-priming MLE30 improved the morphological growth and yield attributes of the Zincol-16 cultivar under the induced terminal droughtTillering and Milking after normalCondition during year-II as per year-I. Seed Zn-priming MLE30 achieved the maximum results in anti-oxidant contents production against terminal droughtMilking following Tillering as compared to normalCondition in Zincol-16 as per Ghazi-19 wheat plants during the second year of the experiment. Observation illustrated that grains Zn contents obtained the highest values by the applied treatment of seed Zn-priming MLE30 followed by Zn-foliar MLE30, Zn-soil MLE30, hydropriming under the induced terminal droughtTillering as compared to normalCondition during both years of trials. Average economic analysis depicted the best benefit-cost ratio of seed Zn-priming MLE30 treatment under normalCondition followed by terminal droughtMilking in Zincol-16 as compared to Ghazi-19 wheat cultivar. So, the findings of this project research suggested that seed Zn-priming MLE30 with wheat Zincol-16 is the most cost-effective and easily adaptable approach for healthy Zn biofortified grains production during unfavorable terminal drought conditions.