Effect of γ-PGA and γ-PGA SAP on soil microenvironment and the yield of winter wheat

Jianzhong Guo; Jingjing Zhang; Kangping Zhang; Sen Li; Yongkang Zhang

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0288299

Effect of γ-PGA and γ-PGA SAP on soil microenvironment and the yield of winter wheat

PLoS One. 2023 Jul 14;18(7):e0288299. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0288299. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Jianzhong Guo¹, Jingjing Zhang¹, Kangping Zhang¹, Sen Li^{2

3}, Yongkang Zhang^{2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Art and Design, Taiyuan University, Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, China.
² Taiyuan River and Lake Management Center, Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, China.
³ College of Water Resources Science and Engineering, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, China.

Abstract

Agricultural poly-γ-glutamic acid (γ-PGA) and γ-PGA super absorbent polymer (SAP) are two forms of γ-PGA applied in agriculture. Different quantities of γ-PGA and γ-PGA SAP (40 kg/hm2, 80 kg/hm2, 120 kg/hm2 and 160 kg/hm2) were applied to the soil in order to investigate their effects on the microenvironment of soil root zone and the yield of winter wheat. The soil water content increased with increasing amounts of γ-PGA SAP. The content of nitrate nitrogen and ammonium nitrogen increased with the increasing amounts of γ-PGA, while γ-PGA SAP significantly increased the content of ammonium nitrogen. The number of soil microorganisms and soil enzyme activities in the root zone increased with the addition of γ-PGA and γ-PGA SAP. The yield of winter wheat increased with the addition of γ-PGA or γ-PGA SAP, but the increasing rate decreased when the amount of γ-PGA and γ-PGA SAP exceeded 80 kg/hm2, with increases of 5.95% and 6.77% compared to the control group, respectively. The addition of γ-PGA significantly increased the protein content of wheat grains, and the WUE increased with increasing amounts of γ-PGA and γ-PGA SAP.

Copyright: © 2023 Guo et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

MeSH terms

Glutamic Acid
Nitrogen / analysis
Polymers
Soil*
Triticum*

Substances

Soil
Polymers
Glutamic Acid
poly(gamma-glutamic acid)
Nitrogen

Grants and funding

This work was financially supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Shanxi Province (202203021212016, 202203021222416), Technological Innovation Programs of Higher Education Institutions in Shanxi (2022L587, 2022L585) and Doctoral Research Start-up Foundation of Taiyuan University. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.