Zhenli He

Zhenli He
University of Florida | UF · Indian River Research and Education Center

PhD

About

559
Publications
0
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29,406
Citations
Additional affiliations
December 1993 - June 1997
Zhejiang University
Position
  • Professor
May 1997 - present
University of Florida, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences
Position
  • Professor (Full)
Description
  • Current responsibility: 70% research and 30% teaching.

Publications

Publications (559)
Article
Abstract The application of carbon nanoparticles (CNPs) derived from carbon black in agriculture provides alternative solutions for sustaining global food security in a changing climate. Most of the existing studies were conducted under controlled conditions, which can rarely reflect CNPs’ performance and impacts in real-world agricultural settings...
Article
Full-text available
Abstract: Soil amendments combined with low cadmium (Cd)-accumulating crops are commonly used for remediating Cd contamination and ensuring food safety. However, the combined effects of soil amendments and the cultivation of faba beans (Vicia faba L.)-known for their high nutritional quality and low Cd accumulation-in moderately Cd-contaminated soi...
Article
Full-text available
With rising food demand, sandy soils are increasingly used in agriculture. Carbon nanomaterials (CNMs) are a potential soil amendment that can enhance soil fertility and health in sandy soils, but most studies have been conducted in controlled greenhouse or laboratory environments. Therefore, there is limited information on the effect of CNMs on so...
Article
Carbon nanomaterials (CNMs) — amendments with carbon in nanoscale form —could potentially enhance fertilizer delivery efficiency in agriculture, but their interaction with soil properties and nutrient co-mobility, especially in coarse-textured soils, remain poorly understood. We conducted a column leaching study in repacked soil columns to compare...
Article
Full-text available
Calcium (Ca) is a vital nutrient essential for structural development and signal transmission in both plants and animals. In humans, inadequate calcium intake has been correlated with various diseases, including osteoporosis, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, and cancer. In areas where plants serve as a main dietary source, calcium intak...
Article
Nanotechnology applications in agriculture have received considerable attention with the aim of improving crop production, nutritional quality and food safety. The comparative effects of four different iron-based nanomaterials (Fe NMs, 50 mg Fe/L) on wheat were investigated following foliar application in a Cd-contaminated field trial. The results...
Article
The application of soil amendment (SA) and the cultivation of low Cd-accumulating varieties have been a widely favored strategy to enable the safe utilization of Cd-contaminated arable land. However, little has been reported on the reciprocal effects of SA on the Cd mitigation and nutritional quality of different wheat varieties. In this study, we...
Article
Full-text available
Cadmium (Cd) contamination poses a significant threat to global agricultural production and hyper accumulating plant species, such as Solanum nigrum (L.), face challenges in phytoremediation due to limited biomass production. Application of plant growth regulators such as folic acid (FA) is a promising strategy to increase biomass production in the...
Article
The phytoremediation efficiency of plants in removing the heavy metals (HMs) might be influenced by their growth status and accumulation capacity of plants. Herein, we conducted a lab-scale experiment and a field try out to assess the optimal plant growth regulators (PGRs) including indole-3-acetic acid (IAA)/brassinolide (BR)/abscisic acid (ABA) i...
Article
Nanomaterials (NMs), particularly ZnO nano-particles (NPs), show great promise in sustainable agriculture for enhancing crop production, mineral nutrition, and food safety. However, custom synthesis of NMs to optimize performance is still a bottleneck. This study synthesized three types of ZnO (NPs) (nZnO-1, nZnO-2, and nZnO-3) with different parti...
Article
Full-text available
Introduction and aims In the context of increasing population and decreasing soil fertility, food security is one of humanity’s greatest challenges. Large amounts of waste, such as sewage sludge, are produced annually, with their final disposal causing environmental pollution and hazards to human health. Sludge has high amounts of nitrogen (N), and...
Article
Abstract: A significant bottleneck of current agricultural systems remains the very low agronomic efficiency of conventional agrochemicals, particularly in sandy soils. Carbon nanomaterials (CNMs) have been proposed to address this inefficiency in sandy soils, which could potentially improve soil fertility and enhance crop growth and physiological...
Article
Full-text available
Modeling plants for biomass production and metal uptake from surrounding environment is strongly dependent on the moisture content of soil. Therefore, experiments were conducted to find out how soil moisture affects the phenotypic traits, photosynthetic efficiency, metabolic profile, and metal accumulation in the hyperaccumulating ecotype of Sedum...
Article
Zinc-oxide nanoparticles (ZnO-NP) effect on crop physiology and zinc recovery remains poorly studied for acidic-sandy soils. To address this, greenhouse pot (plastic-pots, 6 kg soil, maize) experiments with ZnO-NP (50, 100, 150, 200 mg kg−1) applied via different methods (soil-drench, seed-coating and foliar-spray) was conducted in a 60 days study....
Article
Heavy metal pollution in metropolitan soils poses significant risks to human health and the entire ecosystem. Effective mitigation strategies and technologies are crucial for addressing these environmental issues. Fast-growing trees are an essential part of phytoremediation projects all over the world and provide long-term ecological benefits to ma...
Article
Full-text available
Nitrogen, despite being essential for the growth of plants, can pose serious threats to the ecological environment when applied excessively as fertilizers. The application of nanomaterials has a catalytic effect on crop growth and a restorative effect on the environment. However, their effect on mitigating ammonium stress in crops is poorly underst...
Article
Accurate description of Cd micro-zone distribution and accumulation is the prerequisite for revealing Cd transfer and transformation processes. However, to date, the role of soil pores in the Cd micro-zone distribution characteristics in undisturbed soil is still unclear. In this study, the obvious heterogeneous distribution of Cd in and around the...
Article
Full-text available
Application of crop residues and chemical nitrogen (N) fertilizer is a conventional practice for achieving high yield in a rice system. However, the fallacious combination of N fertilizers with crop straw not only significantly reduces the N use efficiencies (NUEs) but also leads to serious environmental problems. The present study employed five tr...
Article
Sustainable strategies are essential for zinc (Zn) biofortification and cadmium (Cd) reduction in staple food crops. Herein, we evaluated the phytotoxicity of Glyzinc under foliar and root application (FA&RA) in a lab-scale experiment, and then investigated its Zn efficiency and Cd reduction through foliar application on wheat (Triticum aestivum L....
Article
The overuse of chemical fertilizers and intensive cropping systems often results in soil quality degradation in the tropical and subtropical regions and affects cadmium (Cd) availability to crops. Therefore, studying the impact of agronomic managements on soil Cd adsorption and related mechanisms is critical for sustainable agriculture in tropical...
Article
Humans are mainly exposed to cadmium (Cd) due to the rice consumption, however there exist considerable differences across rice cultivars in terms of Cd absorption and accumulation in the grains, and subsequent release after digestion (bioaccessibility), as well as uptake by Caco-2 cells of humans (bioavailability). This study comprised of field an...
Article
Heavy metal pollution in metropolitan soils poses significant risks to human health and the entire ecosystem. Effective mitigation strategies and technologies are crucial for addressing these environmental issues. Fast-growing trees are an essential part of phytoremediation projects all over the world and provide long-term ecological benefits to ma...
Article
Full-text available
Soil pollution caused by potentially toxic metals has become a worldwide environmental issue. Geogenic processes and anthropogenic activities are two important sources of soil pollution. Soils may inherit toxic metals from parent materials; however, soil pollution mostly results from industrial and agricultural activities. Contamination by metals c...
Article
Sewage sludge (SS) application to Eucalyptus urograndis plantations can result in wood yields rivalling those achieved when mineral fertilizers are used. While climatic conditions determine Eucalyptus growth and wood production, the use of fertilizers containing boron (B) can mitigate the impact of drought on Eucalyptus growth. We hypothesized that...
Article
The environmental behavior of Cd in soil has been widely studied because of its close relationship with food security and soil environmental pollution. In this study, the roles of P fractions and Fe oxides in the retention of Cd in typical tropical soil from five cropping patterns were investigated. Although there was no evident relationship betwee...
Article
Full-text available
Mato Grosso do Sul State in Brazil is characterized by the ‘Cerrado’ ecoregion, which is the most biologically rich Savannah globally. In agricultural terms, the region produces several commodities that are exported around the world. This level of productivity has been achieved through the large-scale use of synthetic fertilizers, which has created...
Article
To investigate the interaction between N forms and Cu nanoparticles (CuNP) in maize plants (Zea mays L.) and its impact on plant growth, chlorophyll fluorescence, nutrient uptake, and soil properties, an experiment was performed in a greenhouse. The treatments were proportions of NO3−/NH4+ (100/0 and 50/50) and rates of CuNP (0, 25, 50, and 100 mg...
Article
Previous studies have focused on total cadmium (Cd) accumulation in rice or its transformation in soil, but only a few have examined the entire soil-rice-human system. This study investigated the Cd bioaccessibility and bioavailability for humans from grains of early rice cultivars grown in a Cd-polluted field and further combined with multi-traits...
Article
Cadmium (Cd) bioavailability in the rhizosphere makes an important difference in grain Cd accumulation in wheat. Here, pot experiments combined with 16S rRNA gene sequencing were conducted to compare the Cd bioavailability and bacterial community in the rhizosphere of two wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) genotypes, a low-Cd-accumulating genotype in gra...
Article
The use of carbon nanoparticles (CNPs) in agriculture to boost crop production provides alternative solutions to meet ever-increasing food demand. However, insufficient documentation of optimal application methods of CNPs present significant hurdles to its application in agriculture. To clarify how foliar spray and soil drench of CNPs affect corn g...
Article
Full-text available
Sandy soils in tropical areas are more vulnerable to potential toxic elements as a result of their low nutrition. The composite addition of biochar and phosphate material is considered a promising method of immobilizing toxic metals in sandy soils, but the synergistic effects of this process still need to be further explored, especially in typical...
Article
Full-text available
Composted sewage sludge (CSS) contains large amounts of organic matter and nutrients and can be used as an organic fertilizer to improve growth, yield, and quality of sugarcane. However, there is a lack of information regarding the impact of CSS application on sugarcane seedling performance in nursery environments. A field study was conducted using...
Article
Full-text available
Sugarcane demands large amounts of nutrients to reach a high level of productivity. Nutrients are generally supplied by mineral fertilizers, but their high costs and negative environmental impacts have generated interest in greater use of organic nutrient sources such as composted sewage sludge (CSS). In this study, we evaluated changes in soil che...
Chapter
Microplastics are stubborn pollutants that are growing in attention in the twenty-first century. These pollutants are ubiquitous in the entire environment. The endurance of microplastics poses it is greatly resilient to decay and enables it to reach into the natural environment. Owing to its tiny nature, microplastics can be accessed readily and su...
Article
s Copper (Cu) stress is one of the predominant crop yield-reducing factors in agriculture. Application of carbon nanomaterials (CNMs) could have promotive effects on crop growth; however, their effects on alleviation of Cu stress for plants have rarely been documented. In this study, we investigated the comparative role of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) a...
Article
Full-text available
With its accumulation in upland rice, cadmium (Cd) can easily enter the human food chain, which poses a global health threat considering nearly half of the human population depends on rice as a staple food source. A study was conducted to (1) evaluate Cd accumulation by rice cultivars, grown in Cd-polluted Tropical Oxisols, with different levels of...
Article
Full-text available
Sewage sludge (SS) application to Eucalyptus plantations can result in wood yields rivalling those achieved when mineral fertilizers are used. While climatic conditions determine Eucalyptus growth and wood production, the use of fertilizers containing boron (B) can mitigate the impact of drought on Eucalyptus growth. We hypothesized that SS applica...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The discovery of nanocarbon forms and their potential application presents new opportunities in agriculture to enhance crop growth and quality. While the application of carbon nanomaterial (CNM) in agriculture is steadily rising, its fate on soils biogeochemistry isn’t well documented yet. Our study aims to evaluate the effect of novel CNM at diffe...
Poster
Full-text available
Zinc is a critical micronutrient required for enhancing the quality of cereal crops. Its application through conventional methods (e.g.: zinc sulfate) often leads to poor availability in sandy-acidic soils. Zinc oxide nanoparticles (nano ZnO) can be a potential solution but their effect on crop photosynthetic activity isn’t well documented. The per...
Article
Increasing applications of nanoparticles (NPs) in agriculture have raised potential risks to soil and aquatic ecosystems. A comparative study examining the transport of commonly used NPs in porous media is of critical significance for their application and regulation in agroecosystems. In this study, laboratory column leaching experiments were cond...
Article
Plant growth regulators (PGRs) assisted phytoextraction was investigated as a viable phytoremediation technology to increase the phytoextraction efficiency in contaminated soils. This study aimed to evaluate the cadimum (Cd)/lead (Pb)/zinc (Zn) phytoextraction efficiency by a hyperaccumulator Sedum alfredii Hance (S. alfredii) treated with 9 PGRs,...
Article
Full-text available
The use of carbon nanoparticles (CNPs) as a fertilizer synergist to enhance crop growth has attracted increasing interest. However, current understanding about plant growth and soil response to CNPs is limited. In the present study, we investigated the effects of CNPs at different application rates on soil properties, the plant growth and nutrient...
Article
In this study, Rhizobium rhizogenes-mediated root proliferation system in Sedum alfredii has been established. Twenty strains of R. rhizogenes were screened for root proliferation. A significant difference (P< 0.01) was observed in plant morphological characters under influence of different bacterial strains. The highest root fresh weight (3.236 g/...
Article
The harmless treatment of heavy metal-enriched hyperaccumulator biomass is the main barrier to the industrialization of phytoremediation. Hydrothermal conversion of Sedum alfredii using different solvents (i.e. H2O and HCl) at 210-300 ℃ was performed to investigate the behavior of Cd and Zn, and the characteristics and potential application of the...
Article
Constructed wetland is considered a promising approach for water remediation due to its high efficiency, low operation costs, and ecological benefits, but the large amounts of wetland plant biomass need to be properly harvested and utilized. Recently, wetland plant derived biochar has drawn extensive attention owing to its application potential. Th...
Article
Straw residues, as one of the conservation farming practices, are being strongly encouraged in China, including some cadmium-polluted areas. Nowadays, a portion of this plant residue is promoted to be removed for reducing excess metal(loid) in the soil and to be used for bioenergy production. Nevertheless, the possible influences of contaminated st...
Article
High reactivity, reliable properties and positive environmental impacts of sepiolite clay in environment make it an important adsorbent for soil and water applications. Present review critically evaluates the applications of sepiolite in contaminated soils to adsorb toxic metals with an emphasis on cadmium (Cd) and lead (Pb). Research data has been...
Article
While deep soils commonly characterize tropical forests, direct measurements of soil physical–chemical properties, fine root distributions, and relationships among them are scarce. In this paper, we report results from a project in Brazil that were obtained from experimental areas selected for their representative tropical climatic and edaphic feat...
Article
Full-text available
Cadmium (Cd) pollution in cultivated soils has posed a great risk to human health through the soil-plant-human pathway. Therefore, it is important to derive soil thresholds for the low-Cd accumulating genotype of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) to promote its application in agricultural production on Cd-contaminated sites. Here, a pot experiment was p...
Article
Understanding the comprehensive effect on crop production and quality, soil acidification, and Cd accumulation and distribution for wheat-rice rotation under N fertilization and continuous straw return is important for proper contaminated agricultural soil management. A 2-year paddy field experiment was conducted to study the effects of above facto...
Article
Phytoremediation is a green technology for heavy metal removal from contaminated soil, and its remediation efficiency and economic feasibility in field trial should be evaluated before large-scale application. However, there is still lacking relevant analysis, especially for phytoremediation with different cropping patterns. In the present study, w...
Article
Full-text available
Fluorosis is a chronic systemic disease induced by excessive intake of fluoride (F−). Fluoride in water and foods has been widely concerned, while limited reports focused on F− in soils and tobacco leaves which could transfer to human body. In the present study, we mainly focused on the distribution of F− in tobacco-planted soils and tobacco leaves...
Article
Thirty-seven accessions of oilseed sunflower were evaluated under natural field conditions for growth performance, ligno-cellulosic mass production of bioenergy, and metal uptake potential during the remediation of arsenic and mercury-contaminated soil. Significant variations were observed in the ligno-cellulosic components of plant stems at maturi...
Article
Pyrolysis is a promising technique to achieve the sustainable utilization of heavy metal hyperaccumulator derived from phytoremediation of contaminated soils. To investigate the feasibility of synergistic treatment of hyperaccumulator and plastic waste (i.e. polyvinyl chloride, PVC), co-pyrolysis of Sedum alfredii and different mass percentages of...
Article
We need to produce higher foods even under declining natural resources to feed the projected population of 9 billion by 2050 and to sustain food security and nutrition. Abiotic stress has adversely affected canola crop and oil quality especially in sandy soils. To combat this stress, adaptation at the farm level using new and cost-effective amendme...
Article
Full-text available
Cacao (Theobroma cacao L.) was grown as an understory tree in agroforestry systems where it received inadequate to adequate levels of photosynthetic photon flux density (PPFD). As atmospheric carbon dioxide steadily increased, it was unclear what impact this would have on cacao growth and development at low PPFD. This research evaluated the effects...
Article
Full-text available
The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic has led to significant public health crisis all over the world. The rapid spreading nature and high mortality rate of COVID-19 places a huge pressure on scientists to develop effective diagnostics and therapeutics to control the pandemic. Some scientists working on plant biotechnology together with commercial...
Article
Microbial nitrogen (N) immobilization in soil can be enhanced by increasing carbon (C) bioavailability, yet the response of microbial N immobilization to the addition of organic matter is uncertain. In the present study, we investigated the effect of organic matter quality on microbial N immobilization. The response ratio (ln R), i.e., the ratio of...
Article
A community of aquatic macrophytes has an important role in reducing nutrient load and organic and inorganic contaminants in storm/runoff water. However, minimal information is available regarding the efficiency of constructed wetlands for cleaning runoff water from urban areas, especially in the tropical and subtropical regions. This study investi...
Article
To reduce cadmium (Cd) pollution of food chains, screening and breeding of low-Cd-accumulating genotypes have received increasing attention. However, the mechanisms involving Cd tolerance and accumulation are not fully understood. Here, we investigated the physiological responses and metabolomics profiling on two wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) genoty...
Article
Full-text available
At early stages of establishment of tropical plantation crops, inclusion of legume cover crops could reduce soil degradation due to erosion and nutrient leaching. As understory plants these cover crops receive limited irradiance and can be subjected to elevated CO2 at ground level. A glasshouse experiment was undertaken to assess the effects of amb...
Article
Cadmium (Cd), a toxic non-essential metal, is easily accumulated in cacao tissues. This represents a risk for cacao exportation, and consequently it affects the economic well-being of the resource-poor-small-producers in Latin America. A greenhouse experiment was conducted with 53 wild and domesticated cacao genotypes to determine their response to...
Poster
Full-text available
Phosphorus(P) is a key macronutrient required by crops, and addition of P through fertilization is needed to maintain soil productivity. Phosphate rock, which is single largest source to develop P fertilizers, is a finite resource. Innovative technologies for utilizing relatively low-grade phosphate rock not only add economic benefit to the phospha...
Article
Full-text available
Naturally infertile soils require large amounts of mineral fertilizers to obtain the desired crop yield. In the Cerrado region of Brazil, there is a need to investigate the potential of organic fertilizers to sustainably increase crop productivity and food security. A field study was conducted over two experimental seasons to evaluate the agronomic...