article · Agronomy
Field experiments evaluated the effects of biochar and chitosan on barley grown under drought stress. Drought negatively affected barley growth by reducing plant height, leaf numbers, chlorophyll levels, and relative water content, while simultaneously increasing electrolyte leakage, lipid peroxidation, and osmolytes such as soluble sugars, sucrose, and starch. Water stress also reduced grain yield, overall biological yield, and key anatomical dimensions of flag leaves, including leaf tissue thickness and vascular bundle diameter. Applying biochar and chitosan mitigated these adverse effects. The treatments enhanced plant height, leaf count, chlorophyll concentration, and relative water content. Furthermore, they reduced cellular damage indicated by lower electrolyte leakage and lipid peroxidation, while improving anatomical leaf traits and final crop yields under water-limited conditions.
Drought presents a severe challenge to crop production, limiting yields and impairing plant physiological health. Identifying soil and crop treatments that protect plant structures and physiological processes under water scarcity supports more resilient cereal farming. Demonstrating that biochar and chitosan improve barley growth, cell integrity, and yields provides practical pathways to protect grain production in water-limited agricultural settings.
This research could support agricultural input manufacturers and crop producers seeking soil amendments and biostimulant formulations to safeguard barley against water shortages. Because the findings derive from two field experiments, the treatments represent applied agronomic interventions tested in real-world growing conditions, positioning the approach relatively close to field adoption, subject to local economic feasibility and standard application guidelines.
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The impact of biochar and chitosan on barley plants under drought stress conditions was investigated during two field experiments. Our results confirmed that drought stress negatively affected morphological and physiological growth traits of barley plants such as plant height, number of leaves, chlorophyll concentrations, and relative water content. However, electrolyte leakage (EL%), lipid peroxidation (MDA), soluble sugars, sucrose and starch contents significantly increased as a response to drought stress. Additionally, 1000 grain weight, grains yield ha−1 and biological yield significantly decreased in stressed barley plants, also anatomical traits such as upper epidermis, lower epidermis, lamina, and mesophyll tissue thickness as well as vascular bundle diameter of flag leaves significantly decreased compared with control. The use of biochar and chitosan led to significant increases in plant height, number of leaves, and chlorophyll concentrations as well as relative water content; nevertheless these treatments led to significant decreases in electrolyte leakage (EL%) and lipid peroxidation (MDA) in the stressed plants. Moreover, anatomical and yield characters of stressed barley plants were improved with application of biochar and chitosan. The results proved the significance of biochar and chitosan in alleviating the damaging impacts of drought on barley plants.
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DOI: 10.3390/agronomy10050630
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