can this increase rice yields?

 mainly a link to the article so I can read it later.

From Science Daily:

the rice of the green revolution requires lots and lots of fertilizer but the crops only utilize part of what is used. Could microdoses of Selenium increase the utilization of nitrogen and allow less fertilizer to be used?

professors of environmental processes and pollution control at Jiangnan University discovered, is that nanoscale selenium, an element crucial for plant and human health, when applied to the foliage and stems of the rice, reduced the negative environmental impacts of nitrogen fertilization by 41% and increased the economic benefits by 38.2% per ton of rice, relative to conventional practices.,,

Selenium stimulates the plant's photosynthesis, which increased by more than 40%. Increased photosynthesis means the plant absorbs more CO2, which it then turns into carbohydrates. Those carbohydrates flow down into the plant's roots, which causes them to grow.

Bigger, healthier roots release a host of organic compounds that cultivate beneficial microbes in the soil, and it's these microbes that then work symbiotically with the rice roots to pull more nitrogen and ammonium out of the soil and into the plant, increasing its NUE from 30 to 48.3%, decreasing the amount of nitrous oxide and ammonia release to the atmosphere by 18.8-45.6%.

 

With more nutrients coming in, the rice itself produces a higher yield, with a more nutritious grain: levels of protein, certain critical amino acids, and selenium also jumped. On top of all of this, Xing, Wang and their colleagues found that their nano-selenium applications allowed farmers to reduce their nitrogen applications by 30%.

Since rice cultivation accounts for 15-20% of the global nitrogen use, this new technique holds real promise for helping to meet the triple threat of growing population, climate change, and the rising economic and environmental costs of agriculture.

not my area of expertise: I will have to ask Kuya about this, since he is the plant expert of our rice business.