Iron (Fe) and zinc (Zn) deficiency in soils and their low concentration in the major grain crops are serious health concerns of the underprivileged rural poor women and their children. Two major grain crops, viz., rice and wheat, are widely cultivated in the study area of the Old Himalayan Piedmont Plain of Bangladesh. The Plain is strongly to moderately acidic in nature, and understanding of the spatial distribution of Fe and Zn in soils and crops and their measurement is yet to be documented. Therefore, a total of 70 rhizospheric soil samples, 53 wheat grains, and 45 rice grain samples were collected from the study area under wheat‐fallow‐T. aman cropping patterns to investigate the spatial distribution of Fe and Zn. The spatial variation map of soil nutrients was produced using the Inverse Distance Weighting (IDW) method in the ArcGIS environment. The results showed large variations of Fe and Zn in wheat and rice grains among sampling points. The concentrations of micronutrients in the crops were significantly impacted by soil pH, texture, organic carbon, nitrogen, Fe, and Zn. The Fe and Zn in grains of wheat were significantly positively correlated with soil Fe ( r 2 = 0.41) and Zn ( r 2 = 0.50), respectively. Soil Zn showed a significant positive correlation with Zn ( r 2 = 0.68) in rice grain, while the correlation of soil Fe was found to be insignificant with the level of grain Fe. The spatial variation of Fe and Zn and their correlations with soil nutrients will help guide Zn fertilization and organic matter strategies to enhance grain Fe and Zn content and thereby reduce human malnutrition.
Akter et al. (Thu,) studied this question.