Effect of Zn Deficiency on Growth, Percentage of Root Colonization, and Absorption of Zinc, Phosphorus, and Iron in Mycorrhizal Inoculated Maize

Zinc deficiency is one of the most common micronutrients deficiencies in plants and reduces production. The purpose of this research was to use arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and study its effect on Zn deficiency in corn and the plant ability to absorb zinc، phosphorus، and iron، and growth of corn plants. This experiment was performed in two parts. The first part was a factorial experiment conducted in completely-randomized design (CRD) with two factors zinc-deficient (-Zn) and zinc-sufficient (+Zn) (0 and 16 μM) and two fungi levels: +M and -M (mycorrhizal and non-mycorrhizal) cultured in perlite in plastic pots. Each treatment had four replicates. The second part of the experiment was conducted as completely-randomized design (CRD) with two levels of fungi (+M and -M) and four replicates cultured in perlite. The first results showed that in treatments with zinc deficiency، mycorrhizal plants had significantly less growth than non-mycorrhizal plants. Zinc deficiency caused a significant increase in the concentration and amount of phosphorus in shoot and root of mycorrhizal and non-mycorrhizal plants. Mycorrhizal plants with zinc deficiency had the highest concentration and amount of iron and non-mycorrhizal plants with sufficient zinc had the lowest concentration and amount of iron. Zinc deficiency increased the percentage of root colonization of mycorrhizal plants to 58%. In the second part of this study، it was observed that mycorrhizal inoculated plants were able to absorb zinc from the insoluble sources of zinc (such as ZnO).