Agro-morphological and grain-quality responses of barley accessions to zinc foliar application

Abstract The objective of this work was to evaluate the influence of zinc foliar application on the agro-morphological attributes and grain quality of 50 barley accessions. The experiment was carried out in a randomized complete block design with three treatments: 0.25 and 0.50% zinc as ZnSO4; and the control, without zinc. Compared with the control, zinc foliar application at 0.25 and 0.50%, respectively, caused the following increases in the agro-morphological and grain quality traits of barley: 10.5 and 13.42% in plant height, 3.40 and 5.23% in the maturity index, 11.89 and 13.54% in spike length, 31.63 and 32.80% in spike weight, 28.96 and 33.06% in biomass, 6.74 and 19.03% in chlorophyll a, 0.73 and 0.57% in chlorophyll b, 12.20 and 12.90% in total chlorophyll, 31.83 and 43.68% in grain manganese content, and 23.06 and 38.08% in zinc. Therefore, zinc foliar application improved barley agro-morphological and grain quality performances, with variability among treatments and accessions. The foliar application of ZnSO4 at 0.25 and 0.50%, especially at 0.50%, enhances the chlorophyll content, agro-morphological characteristics, and nutrient concentrations of barley grains.