ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Abiotic Stress
This article is part of the Research TopicMechanisms of Metal Toxicity in Plants and Soil: Advances in Physiological, Biochemical, and Molecular InsightsView all articles
Biochar and Nano-Silicon Partnership Alleviates Vanadium Toxicity in Rice through Improving Antioxidant Defense, Nitrogen Assimilation and Iron Plaque Formation
Provisionally accepted
- 1Suzhou University, Suzhou, China
- 2Hunan University of Humanities Science and Technology, Loudi, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Biochar (BC) and nano-particles have emerged as promising strategies to mitigate heavy metal toxicity and remediate polluted soils. Vanadium (V) is a toxic metal posing hazardous impacts to plants and humans. The role of BC and nano-particles, particularly their combination to alleviate V toxicity, is poorly understood. Thus, this explored the role of BC and silicon nano-particles (Si-NPs) partnership in mitigating the V toxicity in rice. The study has five treatments: control, V stress (30 mg kg-1 soil), V stress (30 mg kg-1 soil) + biochar (3%), V stress (30 mg kg-1 soil) + Si-NPs (150 mg kg-1 soil), and V stress (30 mg kg-1 soil) + biochar (3%) + SiO-NPs (150 mg kg-1 soil). The study results revealed that V toxicity decreased rice growth by declining root growth, chlorophyll pigments (78.72-111.50%), nitrogen assimilation, and increasing oxidative stress, membrane damage, and V accumulation in rice plants. Biochar + Si-NPs enhanced rice biomass (20.33%) and grain yield (67.64%) by increasing antioxidant activities (54.12-99.38%), nutrient uptake (58.80-81%), osmolytes synthesis, and decreasing V accretion in rice roots (64.05%) and shoots (91.65%). This increase in rice growth was also linked with an increase in activity of nitrogen assimilation enzymes (nitrate reductase: NR, 65%, glutamine synthetase: GS, 71.82%, glutamate synthase: GOGAT, 106% and glutamate dehydrogenase: GH, 25%) and iron plaque formation. These findings suggest that the partnership between BC and Si-NPs enhanced root growth, chlorophyll synthesis, antioxidant activity, nitrogen assimilation, and iron plaque formation, while decreasing oxidative damage and V accumulation, thereby increasing plant growth. Thus, a combination of BC and Si-NPs can be an important strategy to mitigate the V toxicity and enhance rice production in V-polluted soils.
Keywords: biomass, Chlorophyll, Enzymes activity, nitrogen metabolism, rice, Vanadium
Received: 30 Dec 2025; Accepted: 05 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Wang, Chen, Sun, Wang and Tang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Xiaolei Wang
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.