KumkumMishra
PramodKumarTandon
SudhakarSrivastava Editors
Sustainable
Solutions
forElemental
Deficiency and
Excess in Crop
Plants
Sustainable Solutions for Elemental
Deficiency and Excess in Crop Plants
Kumkum Mishra
Pramod Kumar Tandon
Sudhakar Srivastava
Editors
Sustainable Solutions for
Elemental Deficiency and
Excess in Crop Plants
Editors
Kumkum Mishra
Department of Botany
University of Lucknow
Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India
Pramod Kumar Tandon
Department of Botany
University of Lucknow
Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India
Sudhakar Srivastava
Plant Stress Biology Laboratory,
Institute of Environment and Sustainable
Development
Banaras Hindu University
Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India
ISBN 978-981-15-8635-4 ISBN 978-981-15-8636-1 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-8636-1
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Foreword
The world population today survives with insufcient nutrition whether due to lack
of food or owing to less nutritious food. A number of essential elements constitute an
important part of human nutrition. At the same time, there are elements that are toxic
to plants as well as humans even if present in minute quantities. The crop plants
suffer from two major problems of elemental nutrition: (1) accumulation of toxic
metals in crop plant produce beyond the maximum tolerable limits due to increasing
environmental contamination and (2) decreases in the essential element nutrition of
crop plant produce over the years. The book entitled Sustainable Solutions for
Elemental Deciency and Excess in Crop Plants deals with the elemental nutrition
in crop plants in a holistic manner and also discusses sustainable solutions for the
problem. The book contains chapters from eminent researchers and academicians in
the eld providing vast information on the topic. The team of editors and all the
authors deserve appreciation for this highly useful compilation. I am hopeful that this
book will provide opportunity to students, researchers, and academicians to assimi-
late the essence and importance of elemental nutrition of crop plants.
North-Eastern Hill University
Shillong, Meghalaya, India
Biotech Park
Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India
Pramod Kumar Tandon
vv
Preface
Metals are spread in almost every sphere of the environment. The metals constitute
essential and toxic elements. Essential elements are required for the proper growth
and development of plants, animals, and humans. However, the problem of de-
ciency of metals like zinc, copper, selenium, and iron is quite widespread and plants
therefore suffer from reduced crop yiel ds. Conversely, there are instances of exces-
sive cadmium, arsenic, lead, and aluminum contamination whose presence reduces
crop yields and affects animal and human health. Hence, metal toxicity and de-
ciency are the two sides of the same problem that is commonly encountered. In
addition, the problem of excessive presence of a toxic metal like arsenic may be
exacerbated by the deciency of an essential element like zinc. Therefore, appropri-
ate nutrient management is a burgeoning problem in the present scenario that needs
to be managed so as to sustain crop yields required in the near future. In this
connection, it is also relevant to note that climate-change-driven changes in elemen-
tal concentrations would also be of more concern in the future.
A number of approaches have been investigated in the past several years to
manage elemental concentrations in crop plants. These include fertilizer
amendments for zinc, iron, selenium, etc. The approaches also include biological
interventions through the employment of bacterial and fungal inoculants that
enhance bioavailability and consequently the concentration in plants. There are
biotechnological approaches also that have been attempted through the expression
of specic genes to regulate metal concentrations. Further, crop-breeding strategies
have been specically tried to develop varieties efcient in zinc, copper, and iron
accumulation. Hence, there are a variety of possible solutions that have been studied
and are in the process of research. The present book entitled Sustainable Solutions
for Managing Elemental Deciency and Excess in Crop Plants aims to shed light on
the latest developments and research on solutions for managing the concentrations of
essential elements or toxic metals in crop plants.
The book contains a total of 18 chapters, which are divided into three sections:
general aspects (4 chapters), elemental nutriti on of crop plants (6 chapters), and toxic
metals in crop plants (8 chapters). The rst chapter of this book discusses about
elemental concentrations in the environment encompassing air, water, and soil. The
second chapter presents views on the deciency of essential elements in crop plants.
vii
This chapter encompasses a number of major and trace elements, which are impor-
tant for plant nutrition, and provides information about their roles and deciency
symptoms. Third chapter reviews the problem of toxic metal accumulation in plants
including cereals, vegetables, mushrooms, etc. The fourth chapter encompasses
human health issues emanating from deciency of essential while excess of toxic
elements. The rst four chapters therefore set an excellent beginning of the book.
In the second section, Chaps. 510 are dedicated to issues of essential element
nutrition of crop plants. Chapter 5 presents in-depth discussion about nitrogen,
phosphorus, and potassium in crop plants and provides details of their sources,
requirement for agricultural crops, and their deciency symptoms in crops.
Chapter 6 reviews mechanisms of trace metal uptake and transport in crop plants
up to the grains. Chapters 7 and 8 shed light on the aspects of biofortication and
demonstrate why biofortication is a sustainable and feasible approach to deal with
the problem of elemental deciencies stressing on agronomic solutions. Chapter 9
discusses biological ways through which elemental nutrition of crop plants can be
improved, while Chap. 10 focuses on biotechnological approaches pertinent for the
improvement of essential elements in crop plants. Therefore, Chaps. 510 present
not only the problem but also the prospective solutions for the problem of elemental
nutrition.
In the third section, Chaps. 1118 deal with various aspects of toxic metals in
crop plants. Chapter 11 discusses the problem of toxic metals in crops in detail
spanning its various aspects including ecological risks and human health hazards.
Chapter 12 provides holistic information about physiological, biochemical to molec-
ular responses of plants to toxic metals. Chapter 13 gives details about mechanisms
of toxic metal uptake and transport in plants, in particular, focusing on the role of
transporters. Cha pters 14 and 15 deal with cadmium in particular presenting its wide-
ranging aspects from soil contamination, phytot oxicity, to plant responses to deal
with cadmium toxicity including the roles played by phytohormones. Chapter 16
discusses agronomic management practices that can be utilized to tackle the toxic
metal accumulation in crop plants in a sustainable, feasible, and low-cost manner.
Chapters 17 and 18 stress on biological (microbial) and genetic engineering
approaches, respectively, that can be applied to reduce toxic metals in crop plants
and safeguard plants against metal toxicity.
The book therefore comprises a unique combination of chapters on various
aspects and will give the reader a comprehensive knowledge of sustainable solutions
for managing elemental deciency and excess in crop plants. This book would act as
a guiding textbook for undergraduate and postgraduate students and as a means to
understand the latest research trends for doctoral students as well as for academicians
and researchers.
Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India Kumkum Mishra
Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India Pramod Kumar Tandon
Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India Sudhakar Srivastava
viii Preface
Contents
Part I General Aspects
1 Elemental Concentrations in Soil, Water and Air .............. 3
Vishnu Chandra Srivastava
2Deciency of Essential Elements in Crop Plants ............... 19
Sanjesh Tiwari, Anuradha Patel, Neeraj Pandey, Amandeep Raju,
Madhulika Singh, and Sheo Mohan Prasad
3 The Toxicity and Accumulation of Metals in Crop Plants ........ 53
Sudhakar Srivastava, Pramod Kumar Tandon, and Kumkum Mishra
4 Effect of Deciency of Essential Elements and Toxicity of Metals
on Human Health ...................................... 69
Deepak Kumar Mehrotra
Part II Elemental Nutrition of Crop Plants
5 An Overview of Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium: Key Players
of Nutrition Process in Plants ............................. 85
Dwaipayan Sinha and Pramod Kumar Tandon
6 The Mechanisms of Trace Element Uptake and Transport Up To
Grains of Crop Plants ................................... 119
Pramod Kum ar Singh, Shalini G. Pratap, and Pramod Kumar Tandon
7 Biofortication of Crop Plants: A Practical Solution to Tackle
Elemental Deciency .................................... 135
Bruna Moreira Freire, Rodrigo Mendes Pereira, Camila Neves Lange,
and Bruno Lemos Batista
8 An Overview on Management of Micronutrients Deciency
in Plants Through Biofortication: A Solution of Hidden
Hunger .............................................. 183
Pradeep Kumar Yadav, Anita Singh, and S. B. Agrawal
ixix
9 Biological Interventions Towards Management of Essential
Elements in Crop Plants ................................. 209
Dwaipayan Sinha and Pramod Kumar Tandon
10 Biotechnological Approa ches to Enhanc e Crop Quality for Iron
and Zinc Nutrition ..................................... 259
Shraddha Singh, Sudhakar Srivastava, and Penna Suprasanna
Part III Toxic Metals in Crop Plants
11 Toxic Metals in Crops: A Burgeoning Problem ................ 273
Amit K. Mishra, Jaswant Singh, and Pratyush Pingita Mishra
12 Heavy Metal Contamination of Environment and Crop Plants .... 303
Anuradha Patel, Sanjesh Tiwari, Amandeep Raju, Neeraj Pandey,
Madhulika Singh, and Sheo Mohan Prasad
13 Mechanism of Toxic Metal Uptake and Transport in Plants ...... 335
Jyoti Mathur and Priti Chauhan
14 Cadmium: Bioavailability in Soils and Phytotoxicity ............ 351
Harmanjit Kaur and So Javed Hussain
15 Cadmium: Uptake in Plants and Its Alleviation Via Crosstalk
Between Phytohormones and Sulfur ........................ 393
Harmanjit Kaur and So Javed Hussain
16 Agronomic Management Practices to Tackle Toxic Metal Entry
into Crop Plants ....................................... 419
Tatiana Pedron, Vitória Aparecida Procópio, Bruno Alves Rocha,
and Bruno Lemos Batista
17 Microbial Inoculation to Alleviate the Metal Toxicity in Crop
Plants and Subsequent Growth Promotion ................... 451
Fathima Afsal, Arnab Majumdar, Jisha Suresh Kumar, and Sutapa
Bose
18 Genetic Engineering to Reduce Toxicity and Increase
Accumulation of Toxic Metals in Plants ..................... 481
Amit Kumar, Mohammad Israil Ansari, Sudhakar Srivastava,
Gauri Saxena, and Kiran Gupta
x Contents
Editors and Contributors
About the Editors
Kumkum Mishra Ex. Professor and Assistant Coordi-
nator M.Sc. Environmental Science, University of
Lucknow, U.P. (India). She has more than 30 years of
research and teaching experience in the eld of muta-
genesis and genotoxic evaluation of environmental
pollutants by plant bioassays. She has handled UGC
and DST major projects as Principal Investigator. She
has also supervised 14 doctoral, 3 postdoctoral, and
2 M.Phil. candidates. She has published 46 research
papers, 2 books, and 4 book chapters.
Pramod Kuma r Tandon Ex. Professor of Botany and
Course Coordinator, M.Sc. Environment Science
Programme at the University of Lucknow (India). He
has more than 40 years of teaching and research experi-
ence in the eld of Botany/Environment Science. He has
guided 4 postdoctoral scientists, 32 Ph.D., and 9 M.Phil.
students. In 2003, he visited Brisbane, Australia for aca-
demic purpose. He has published more than hundred
research papers, one book, and three book chapters. He
was awarded distinguished UGC-BSR Faculty Fellow-
ship in 2011 for his outstanding research in the eld of
metal toxicity and some other important aspects in plants.
xixi