Monitoring Report MORRIS, Minn. – Pakistani student Adnan Bukhari, who studying drought stress physiology at the USDA-ARS North Central Soil Conservation Research laboratory in Morris for the last six months, is looking at the effects of sodium metasilicate as an additive to mitigate drought stress in wheat, he said.
He has a six-month scholarship to work on research abroad, said Bukhari, a student at the University of Agriculture in Faisalabad.
Bukhari doesnt come from a farm family but says his interest in drought-tolerant crops comes from the needs his countrys farmers have to grow crops in an arid climate. Like all producers, Pakistani farmers are looking for ways to optimize yield.
“The objective is to get more yield from less inputs,” he said. “You can have different strategies to get more yield and the use of the sodium metasilicate is one of them.”
Crops in Pakistan are raised both on dry ground and irrigated. Hes looking at the sodium metasilicate added through irrigation, being applied to the land or as a seed treatment.
Hes looking forward to working in the fields at the Soils Labs Swan Lake Research Farm and to talk to farmers in the area about how they raise crops in the region.