Abstract
Drought is among the abiotic stress factors affecting plant growth and development. Bone meal (BM), a by-product of the agri-food sector, is a good option for drought stress mitigation. The present study was conducted through a pot trial to determine the effect of different concentrations of BM on morpho-physio-biochemical traits of wheat under drought stress. Experimental treatments included two levels of drought stress (control and drought stress) and various levels of soil-applied bone meal, i.e., 0, 1, 3, and 5% to wheat plants. The results revealed that the drought stress conditions significantly impacted the performance of the wheat plants. But the different BM levels had a significant positive effect on the growth, biomass, and photosynthetic pigments of the wheat plants. The treatment group (3% BM) showed improvements in leaf area (80.68%), root dry weight (22.22%), shoot dry weight (50.69%), and total chlorophyll content (33.51%). Furthermore, BM at the optimum level significantly modulated enzymatic antioxidants and yield characteristics of the wheat plants under well-watered and drought-stressed conditions compared with the control. However, higher doses of BM caused a decreasing effect on the growth, biomass, and photosynthetic attributes of the wheat plants. Overall, the optimal use of BM (3%) has immense potential as an effective and long-term approach for increasing drought stress tolerance in wheat.