Melatonin spray lets rice farmers cut fertilizer without losing yield
Crop Improvement
If you grow vegetables or grains, this points to a way to get full harvests while using less fertilizer, which saves money and reduces runoff into local streams and gardens downstream.
Rice needs a lot of nitrogen fertilizer to grow well, but using less of it usually means smaller harvests. Scientists found that spraying upland rice with melatonin, the same molecule that helps regulate sleep in humans, helps the plant redirect its nitrogen toward photosynthesis instead of storage. This let farmers cut fertilizer by 20% while still getting yields as good as the full-fertilizer crop.
Key Findings
Rice treated with melatonin at a reduced nitrogen rate (160 kg N/ha) matched yields of untreated rice given the full recommended dose (200 kg N/ha) across two growing seasons.
Melatonin boosted photosynthetic nitrogen-use efficiency by 11.10% and increased the share of leaf nitrogen devoted to photosynthesis from 73.55% to 86.79%, while storage nitrogen dropped from 16.66% to 2.86%.
Blocking melatonin production with an inhibitor (p-CPA) reduced photosynthesis and nitrogen metabolism, confirming melatonin's direct role, and reapplying melatonin partially restored these functions.
chevron_right Technical Summary
Rice farmers can cut nitrogen fertilizer by 20% without losing yield if they spray plants with melatonin, a natural compound that helps leaves use nitrogen more efficiently for photosynthesis.
Abstract Preview
Original paper
Exogenous Melatonin Compensates for Moderate Nitrogen Reduction in Upland Rice by Optimizing Leaf Nitrogen Allocation and Photosynthetic Metabolism
ABSTRACT Moderate nitrogen (N) reduction can lower production costs in upland rice but may constrain photosynthesis, N assimilation, and yield formation. Melatonin has the potential to regulate pho...
open_in_new Read full abstractAbstract copyright held by the original publisher.
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