Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles Improve Salt Tolerance in Rice Seedlings by Improving Physiological and Biochemical Indices

Understanding the salinity stress mechanisms is essential for crop improvement and sustainable agriculture. Salinity prepotent abiotic compared with other stresses that decrease growth development, reducing production creating food security-related threats. Therefore, input of metal oxide nanoparticles (NPs) such as zinc (ZnO-NPs) can improve salt tolerance in plants, especially early stage growth. aim current study was to evaluate impact ZnO-NPs on inducing two rice (Oryza sativa L.) genotypes seedlings. An undocumented landrace (Kargi) basmati (CSR 30) seeds were grown a hydroponic system weeks without 50 mg/L concentrations various doses NaCl (0, 60, 80, 100 mM). Both Kargi (15.95–42.49%) CSR 30 (15.34–33.12%) showed reduction plant height photosynthetic pigments (chlorophyll b, carotenoids, total chlorophyll), Zn content, K+ uptake under condition, control On hand, upregulated proline, malondialdehyde (MDA), Na+ antioxidant enzyme activities—namely, those superoxide dismutase (SOD), ascorbate peroxidase (APX), catalase (CAT), glutathione reductase (GR)—in both O. over control. However, ZnO-NP-treated (Kargi restored pigment accumulation level, reforming stomata trichome morphology, also increased enzymes SOD, APX, CAT, GR activity, which alleviated oxidative stress, while level MDA, H2O2 condition. The present findings suggest adding could mitigate by upregulating antioxidative enhancing cultivation salinity-affected areas.