Water deficit is a major abiotic stress that devastatingly affects wheat growth and production, particularly in arid environments. Moreover, drought is expected to become more frequent and severe owing to current climate change. Consequently, it is necessary to find affordable approaches to enhance drought tolerance, principally for important crops such as wheat. The present study is a controlled pot experiment which was performed to investigate the efficiency of soil application or exogenous foliar of zinc sulfate (ZnSO₄·7H₂O) or/and iron sulfate (FeSO₄·7H₂O) to attenuate the deleterious impacts of drought stress in winter wheat. The plants were exposed to water deficit (40% field capacity) versus well-watered conditions (80% field capacity). Drought stress significantly declined relative water content and leaf chlorophyll content while increased proline accumulation, water saturation deficit, and water uptake capacity relative to well-watered conditions. Moreover, leaf characters (number and area) significantly diminished as a result of water deficit. The detrimental impacts on physiological and morphological attributes reflected a considerable reduction in grain yield and all contributed traits. However, the soil- and foliar-applied zinc sulfate or/and iron sulfate significantly enhanced all aforementioned depressed parameters which reflected markedly in enhancing yield traits under drought stress. Among the investigated treatments, the exogenous foliar applications were more effective in promoting drought tolerance particularly combined both micronutrients which can be employed in reducing the losses caused by drought stress in wheat-growing regions.

缺水是一种主要的非生物胁迫，会严重影响小麦的生长和生产，尤其是在干旱环境中。此外，由于当前的气候变化，预计干旱将变得更加频繁和严重。因此，有必要找到负担得起的方法来增强耐旱性，主要是小麦等重要作物。本研究是一项对照盆栽试验，旨在研究硫酸锌（ZnSO ₄ ·7H ₂ O）或/和硫酸铁（FeSO ₄ ·7H ₂O) 减轻干旱胁迫对冬小麦的有害影响。相对于水分充足的条件（80% 的田间容量），植物暴露于缺水（40% 的田间容量）。干旱胁迫显着降低了相对水分含量和叶片叶绿素含量，同时相对于水分充足的条件增加了脯氨酸积累、水分饱和度不足和水分吸收能力。此外，由于缺水，叶片特征（数量和面积）显着降低。对生理和形态属性的不利影响反映了谷物产量和所有贡献性状的显着降低。然而，土壤和叶面施用的硫酸锌或/和硫酸铁显着增强了上述所有抑制参数，这显着反映了干旱胁迫下产量性状的增强。