Improvement of Rice Plant Root by Kaolin Application in Iron Toxicity Condition at Zoukougbeu (Central-West of Côte d’Ivoire)

Abstract

In the tropics, lowland rice cultivation is often confronted with the problem of iron toxicity. The solution proposed by research in general is the use of industrial silicon. However, the high cost of industrial silicon limits its adoption by farmers. A study was carried out in Zakogbeu; Center-West of Côte d’Ivoire, to assess the potential of kaolin to mitigate the effect of this soil constraint on the root of the rice plant. Five kaolin-based treatments were analyzed (T₀= 0 kg kaolin ha^−¹, T₁ = 366 kg kaolin ha^−¹, T₂ = 736 kg kaolin ha^−¹, T₃ = 1097 kg kaolin ha^−¹ and T₄ = 1465 kg kaolin ha^−¹ are 0, 200, 400, 600 and 800 kg SiO₂ ha^−¹) in a device in complete random blocks, with 5 repetitions. The results obtained show that kaolin supply increases the length of the root tissue as well as the number of branching of the root of the rice plant. Root tissue increased from 10 cm with T₀ treatment to more than 15 cm with treatment T₄. The microscopic observation of the roots shows that in the treatment T₀, the roots present only primary ramifications and the tertiary and quaternary ramifications are observed with the treatments T₃ and T₄. The contribution of kaolin is an alternative to inhibit the effect of iron toxicity on the rice plant root development in iron toxicity condition.