Under water-saving conditions, the decrease of
soil water content maybe restricted to Zn transport to
the plant roots and transpiration rate, resulting in
reduced Zn transport towards plants and loading into
the grains as well (Rehman et al., 2012). However,
accord to Zhang et al. (2009), AWD not only enhanced
root growth, but also maintained the transpiration
rate of leaves when plants were re-watered
(Zhang et al., 2009). In this present study, AWD also
significantly increased root growth (Table 2), Zn
concentration in both root and shoot (Table 4) as well
as rice grain (Fig. 1). In addition, Zn concentration in
rhizosphere soil was not decreased under AWD conditions
when compared with CF (data not shown).
The results demonstrated that Zn transport to rice
roots was not restricted when safe AWD was practiced,
and the increases of yield and Zn concentration
in grain rice resulted in higher Zn accumulation in
brown rice and polished rice (Fig. 2).