Int.J.Curr.Microbiol.App.Sci (2019) 8(6): 404-414 404 Original Research Article https://doi.org/10.20546/ijcmas.2019.806.045 Distribution of Zinc in Plant Parts of Wheat Varieties with Varying Zinc Sensitivity at Different Growth Stages Deepa Rawat*, Santosh Chandra Bhatt 1 , P.C. Srivastava 2 and S.P. Pachauri 3 Department of Soil Science, College of Agriculture, GB Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Udham Singh Nagar, Uttarakhand-263945, India *Corresponding author ABSTRACT Introduction Zinc deficiency in crops is the common micronutrient problem world over; therefore, zinc malnutrition has become a major health burden among the resource deprived people (Takkar et al., 1990, Singh, 2011). About 50% of soils used for cereal production in the world contain low levels of plant available Zn, which reduces not only grain yields but also nutritional quality of grain (Graham and Welch, 1996). Jiang et al., (2007) showed that the final mass of Zn in the rice grain is a function of (1) Zn availability in the soil, (2) the capacity of the roots to take up Zn, (3) the Zn demand of the growing crop, and (4) the partitioning of Zn within the crop. However, a large proportion of Zn is sequestered in the vegetative parts of the above-ground crop and in the panicle structure, so that relatively little Zn accumulates in the grains, in spite of the fact that stimulating Zn uptake after flowering increased Zn mass concentration in the grains. International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 8 Number 06 (2019) Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas.com A pot experiment was conducted in the green house of GB Pant University of Agriculture and Technology Pantnagar, to study the percent distribution of Zn on plant parts of four wheat varieties (UP 262, UP 2628. PBW 175 and UP2554) having varying Zn sensitivity at different growth stages. The soil used for pot experiment had sandy loam texture, 7.2 pH, 0.9% organic carbon and 0.47 mg DTPA extractable Zn per kg soil. Each pot received recommended dose of 25 mg N, 11.2 mg P and 20.75 mg K kg -1 soil. The pretreatment imposed consisted of a factorial combination of four wheat varieties and two Zn levels (0 and 10 mg Zn kg -1 soil). There were two replications. Zinc was applied through a stock solution of Zn.SO 4 .7H 2 O. Among the growth stages, the maximum average total uptake of Zn was noted at D 3 (85.4 μg/plant) followed by D 4 (78.1 μg/plant) D 2 (35.6 μg/plant) and D 1 (10.6 μg/plant). Application of 10 mg Zn kg -1 soil increased the total average uptake of Zn per plant of wheat significantly by 31.4 percent over no application of Zn. At harvesting, the highest percent accumulation of Zn was noted in straw (55.9 %) followed by grain (32.0 %) and root (12.1 %). Among all four varieties UP 262 and PBW 175 stored more of the Zn in non-edible parts of the plant whereas higher amount of Zn was recorded in the grain of UP 2628 and UP 2554). Keywords Zinc, Growth stage, Plant parts, Sandy loam soil Accepted: 04 May 2019 Available Online: 10 June 2019 Article Info