Zinc in soils, water and food crops
Abstract
A basic knowledge of the dynamics of zinc (Zn) in soils, water and plants are important steps in achieving sustainable solutions to the problem of Zn deficiency in crops and humans. This paper aims at reviewing and discussing the relevant aspects of the role of Zn in the soil-water-plant agro biological system: from the origins of Zn in soils and water to soil Zn deficiency distribution and the factors affecting soil Zn availability to plants, therefore to elucidate the strategies potentially help combating Zn deficiency problems in soil-plant-human continuum. This necessitates identifying the main areas of Zn-deficient soils and food crops and treating them with Zn amendments, mainly fertilizers in order to increase Zn uptake and Zn use efficiency to crops. In surface and groundwater, Zn enters the environment from various sources but predominately from the erosion of soil particles containing Zn. In plants is involved in several key physiological functions (membrane structure, photosynthesis, protein synthesis, and drought and disease tolerance) and is required in small but nevertheless critical contents. Several high revenue food crops such as beans, citrus, corn, rice etc are highly susceptible to Zn deficiency and biofortification is considered as a promising method to accumulate high content of Zn especially in grains. With the world population continuing to rise and the problems of producing extra food rich in Zn to provide an adequate standard of nutrition to increase, it is very important that any losses in production easily corrected so as Zn deficiencies are prevented.
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Many plant species accumulate Zn at concentrations up to 1% of the dry weight of plant biomass.
“Many plant species accumulate Zn at concentrations of up to 1% of the dry weight of plant biomass (Noulas et al., 2018; Sytar et al., 2021).”
From Plant hyperaccumulators: a state-of-the-art review on mechanism of heavy metal transport and sequestration (2025) · cites this paper as Noulas et al., 2018
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Zinc hyperaccumulation in plants: A review
Balafrej, H., Bogusz, D., Triqui, Z.-E. A., Guedira, A., Bendaou, N., Smouni, A., & Fahr, M. (2020) · Plants · doi:10.3390/plants9050562 · Cited by 275 · see citing works
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“Many plant species accumulate Zn at concentrations of up to 1% of the dry weight of plant biomass (Noulas et al., 2018; Sytar et al., 2021).”
- Authors
- Noulas, C., Tziouvalekas, M., & Karyotis, T.
- Affiliations
- National Agricultural Research Foundation (GR)
- Corresponding author
- Noulas, Christos
- Venue
- Journal of Trace Elements in Medicine and Biology
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2018-09
- Volume
- 49
- Pages
- 252-260
- ISSN
- 0946-672X (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2793773734
- Cited by
- 525
- References
- 84
- Citations by year
- 2026: 59 · 2025: 107 · 2024: 101 · 2023: 73 · 2022: 58 · 2021: 59 · 2020: 38 · 2019: 24 · 2018: 5 · 2013: 1
- FWCI
- 3.23
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Trace Elements in Medicine and Biology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Plant Science › Plant Micronutrient Interactions and Effects
- Health Sciences › Nursing › Nutrition and Dietetics › Trace Elements in Health
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Pollution › Heavy metals in environment
- Keywords
- zinc, zinc deficiency, soil zinc availability, zinc fertilizer, zinc biofortification, zinc efficiency, soil erosion, food crops
- MeSH terms
- Humans, Soil, Water, Zinc, Crops, Agricultural
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