Ultrahigh water-retention cellulose hydrogels as soil amendments for early seed germination under harsh conditions
writer：Cong-Cong Qin, Somia Yassin Hussain Abdalkarim, Ying Zhou, Hou-Yong Yu, Xia He
keywords：Wood pulps, Zinc chlorides, Hydrogels, Soils, Water retentions, Seedings growth
source：期刊
Issue time：2022年
Agricultural lands are greatly
affected by climate change, harsh soils, and desertification, which negatively
impact the future sustainability of crop production. This work proposes a new
strategy based on cellulose-inspired hydrogel (Gel-glycerol) as soil modulates
to transform harsh soil into arable soil to promote seed germination and
growth. Gel-glycerol with a 3D network structure exhibited good rheological
properties, high thermal stability, thermal reversibility (?81.3 °C), and ultrahigh water-retention capacity
(160%) for enhancing seeds germination. Compared with the control sample, the
germination percentage and the average leaves number of wheat plants increased
by 21.88% and 100% after 21, days with Gel-glycerol. Associated with the most
common water-retaining agents (potassium polyacrylate, KPAM), the germination
percentage of lettuce seeds for 16 days increased by 38% and 22% with
Gel-glycerol treatment under harsh soils. Moreover, the water uptake value of
wheat plants with Gel-glycerol improved by 94.7%. This result confirmed that
adding Gel-Glycerol as an amendment can significantly tailor soil salt content.
This finding offers excellent applicability in the agriculture ecosystem,
displaying the potential value in soil amendments and an alternate solution for
solving the continuing challenge of harsh environmental conditions.