Nanopriming a method for improving crop plants performance: a case study of red beans

Abstract

The effect of iron, zinc and biological nanofertilizers on the growth and development of beans was investigated as a factorial experiment in a randomized complete block design with three replications. Two red bean cultivars (Akhtar and Sayyad) were investigated in five levels of priming with nanofertilizers (iron, zinc, iron + zinc combination, biologic, iron + zinc + biologic combination). The amount of nanofertilizers used for iron, zinc, biologic, the combination of iron + zinc, and the combination of iron + zinc + biologic, respectively, for each treatment was 4, 4, 16, 8 (4 + 4) and 24 (4 + 4+ 16) percentages. Morpho-phenological traits, yield and yield components were evaluated. The results showed that the effect of nanofertilizer on days to the emergence of third trifoliate leaf and maturity, grain filling period, plant height and seed number per pod were significant. The traits of emergence of cotyledons, the emergence of third trifoliate leaf, plant height and number of pods per plant were significantly affected by the interaction of cultivar and nanofertilizer. The application of compound fertilizer (iron + zinc + biologic nanofertilizers) had a greater effect on the date of maturity, grain filling period and seed number per pod than other treatments. In the study of interaction between nanofertilizer and cultivar, it was observed that application of iron (4%)+zinc (4%) compound increased the number of pods per plant compared with other treatments. Seed priming with zinc (4%)+iron (4%) nanofertilizers had the largest positive effect on grain yield and is recommended to increase red bean production.

Keywords:

• common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.)
• nanofertilizer
• priming
• yield

Conflict of interest

No conflict of interest was reported by the authors.