Assessing Zinc Requirement of Newly Developed Wheat Variety NWB-50

Pakistan is facing Zinc (Zn) scarcity at its’ peak, that restrict wheat production and nutritional value of grains. Improving the available Zn in wheat grains is essential for crop performance as well as for human health. Wheat is a principal food and a major alimental Zn source of the population. Understanding wheat responses to soil-applied Zn is therefore critical. Hence, the present study was led to evaluate the growth, yield, and Zn availability of newly developed wheat variety (NWB-50) with various Zn doses. The experiment followed a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) consisting of five Zn treatments Control (0 kg Zn ha⁻¹), T1 (1.25, T2 (2.5, T3 (5.0, and T4 (7.5 kg Zn ha⁻¹)) each replicated three times. All agronomic traits were significantly (p < 0.05) affected by Zn application. The maximum plant height (99.7 ± 2.1 cm), number of tillers (372.3 m-2± 6.74), number of spikelets (21.7 ± 0.88), spike length (12.2 ± 0.15 cm), grains per spike (68.2 ± 0.70), 1000-grain weight (40.7 g± 0.85 g), grain yield (4387.3 kg ha⁻¹± 16.34), biological yield (8526.7 kg ha⁻¹± 64.71), harvest index (51.4 ± 1.3%), grain Zn concentration (41.7 mg kg⁻¹± 0.49) and straw Zn content (24.1 mg kg⁻¹± 0.69) were recorded in treatment four. The minimum values were observed in the control. It is concluded that treatment four was the prime dose among other tested doses in this experiment to improve growth, yield, and Zn biofortification of wheat cultivar NWB-50 grown in a calcareous soil