Chinmaya Kumar Das, PhD
Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology, Bhubaneswar, India

Part of the book: Pyrite and Pyrrhotite: Managing the Risks in Construction Materials and New Applications

Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.52305/CNAM5613

Abstract

The development of affordable green interventions using abundantly available and inexpensive earth resources is needed to achieve sustainability in food security. This will help to minimize the expansion of negative environmental footprints, mostly associated with excessive dependency on fertilizers and agrochemicals. In this chapter, an attempt is made to describe the role of a readily available mineral on the Earth’s surface, i.e., pyrite, an iron-sulfide mineral, in sustaining chemoautotrophic life forms from the hydrothermal vent of the deep sea to its emerging applications in the soil test bed, to enhance crop productivity. This would be achieved by modulating the developmental rhythms and metabolomic circuitry of the crop plants without affecting the environmental health. Pyrite is implicated in prebiotic chemistry-mediated evolution and emergence of life, probably by playing a role in electron transfer reactions, energy transductions and informational coupling. Sustainable applications of nano pyrite through seed pretreatment or root priming are implicated in crop growth and yield enhancement in multiple crops including cereals (wheat, rice), pulses (chickpea), oilseed (sesame, mustard), vegetables (spinach, carrot, beetroot, cauliflower, cabbage, tomato), spice (chili, fenugreek), flower (marigold), and fodder (alfalfa). The mechanism of crop enhancement involves fortification of crop plants with elemental sulfur, iron and better pumping of nutrient ions from the soil. Pyrite[1]mediated long term beneficial effects in multiple crop plants are attributed to the generation of traces of H2O2, FeS, elemental sulfur, FeSO4 and Fe2O3 from the reaction between pyrite and water. The generated H2O2 promotes growth in spinach and rice by promoting the higher breakdown of starch and thus boosting germination and growth. These are linked to the secondary chemical messenger role of generated H2O2 in stimulating a molecular signaling pathway called “the brassinosteroid pathway” to help in CO2 assimilation, redox signaling and carbohydrate metabolism. Similarly, root priming or seed pretreatment with pyrite modulated rhizosphere ion dynamics, to modulate root architecture with denser root networks and better root foraging capacity, is ecologically useful in competing for nutrients from the soil. Overall, pyrite can play a role in sustainable enhancement of crop productivity in an ecofriendly manner, with reduced fertilizer consumption and without jeopardizing genetic diversity.

Keywords: iron pyrite, prebiotic chemistry, crop productivity

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