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 insufﬁcient 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 Deﬁciency 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 ﬁeld 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

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 deﬁ-

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 deﬁ-

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 deﬁciency 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 speciﬁc genes to regulate metal concentrations. Further, crop-breeding strategies

have been speciﬁcally tried to develop varieties efﬁcient 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 Deﬁciency 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 ﬁrst chapter of this book discusses about

elemental concentrations in the environment encompassing air, water, and soil. The

second chapter presents views on the deﬁciency 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 deﬁciency

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 deﬁciency of essential while excess of toxic

elements. The ﬁrst four chapters therefore set an excellent beginning of the book.

In the second section, Chaps. 5–10 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 deﬁciency 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 biofortiﬁcation and

demonstrate why biofortiﬁcation is a sustainable and feasible approach to deal with

the problem of elemental deﬁciencies 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. 5–10 present

not only the problem but also the prospective solutions for the problem of elemental

nutrition.

In the third section, Chaps. 11–18 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 deﬁciency 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

2Deﬁciency 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 Deﬁciency 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 Biofortiﬁcation of Crop Plants: A Practical Solution to Tackle

Elemental Deﬁciency .................................... 135

Bruna Moreira Freire, Rodrigo Mendes Pereira, Camila Neves Lange,

and Bruno Lemos Batista

8 An Overview on Management of Micronutrients Deﬁciency

in Plants Through Biofortiﬁcation: 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 Soﬁ Javed Hussain

15 Cadmium: Uptake in Plants and Its Alleviation Via Crosstalk

Between Phytohormones and Sulfur ........................ 393

Harmanjit Kaur and Soﬁ 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 ﬁeld 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 ﬁeld 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 ﬁeld of

metal toxicity and some other important aspects in plants.

xixi