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Effects of Compost Amendment on Glycophyte and Halophyte Crops Grown on Saline Soils: Isolation and Characterization of Rhizobacteria with Plant Growth Promoting Features and High Salt Resistance
- Source :
- Applied Sciences, Vol 11, Iss 2125, p 2125 (2021), Applied Sciences, Volume 11, Issue 5
- Publication Year :
- 2021
- Publisher :
- MDPI AG, 2021.
-
Abstract
- Soil salinization and desertification due to climate change are the most relevant challenges for the agriculture of the 21st century. Soil compost amendment and plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGP-R) are valuable tools to mitigate salinization and desertification impacts on agricultural soils. Selection of novel halo/thermo-tolerant bacteria from the rhizosphere of glicophytes and halophytes, grown on soil compost amended and watered with 150/300 mM NaCl, was the main objective of our study. Beneficial effects on the biomass, well-being and resilience, exerted on the assayed crops (maize, tomato, sunflower and quinoa), were clearly observable when soils were amended with 20% compost despite the very high soil electric conductivity (EC). Soil compost amendment not only was able to increase crop growth and biomass, but also their resilience to the stress caused by very high soil EC (up to 20 dS m−1). Moreover, compost amendment has proved itself a valuable source of highly halo-(4.0 M NaCl)/thermo tolerant rhizobacteria (55 °C), showing typical PGP features. Among the 13 rhizobacterial isolates, molecularly and biochemically characterized, two bacterial strains showed several biochemical PGP features. The use of compost is growing all around the world reducing considerably for farmers soil fertilization costs. In fact, only in Italy its utilization has ensured, in the last years, a saving of 650 million euro for the farmers, without taking into account the environment and human health benefits. Furthermore, the isolation of halo/thermo-tolerant PGPR strains and their use will allow the recovery and cultivation of hundreds of thousands of hectares of saline and arid soils now unproductive, making agriculture more respectful of agro-ecosystems also in view of upcoming climate change.
- Subjects :
- 0106 biological sciences
halo/thermo-tolerance
Soil salinity
Amendment
Biomass
010501 environmental sciences
engineering.material
Rhizobacteria
lcsh:Technology
01 natural sciences
lcsh:Chemistry
Halophyte
General Materials Science
Halo/thermo-tolerance
Organic amendment
Salt stress tolerance
Sustainable agriculture
salt stress tolerance
organic amendment
lcsh:QH301-705.5
Instrumentation
0105 earth and related environmental sciences
Fluid Flow and Transfer Processes
Rhizosphere
lcsh:T
Compost
Process Chemistry and Technology
General Engineering
lcsh:QC1-999
Computer Science Applications
sustainable agriculture
lcsh:Biology (General)
lcsh:QD1-999
Agronomy
lcsh:TA1-2040
Soil water
engineering
Environmental science
lcsh:Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General)
lcsh:Physics
010606 plant biology & botany
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 20763417
- Volume :
- 11
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Applied Sciences
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....dcc833746bd612b734b8e50f30e97181