Abstract
Many Trichoderma are successfully used to improve agriculture productivity due to their capacity for biocontrol and to stimulate plant growth and tolerance to abiotic stress. This research elucidates the effect of applications with Trichoderma harzianum strain T22 (T22), or biopolymer (BP) alone or in combination (BP + T22 or BP + 6-pentyl-α-pyrone (6PP); a Trichoderma secondary metabolite) on the crop performance, nutritional and functional quality of greenhouse tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L. cultivar Pixel). T22 elicited significant increases in total yield (+40.1%) compared to untreated tomato. The content of lycopene, an important antioxidant compound in tomatoes, significantly increased upon treatment with T22 (+ 49%), BP + T22 (+ 40%) and BP + 6PP (+ 52%) compared to the control. T22 treatments significantly increased the content of asparagine (+37%), GABA (+87%) and MEA (+102%) over the control; whereas BP alone strongly increased GABA (+105%) and MEA (+85%). The synthesis of these compounds implies that tomato plants are able to reuse the photorespiratory amino acids and ammonium for producing useful metabolites and reduce the pressure of photorespiration on plant metabolism, thus optimizing photosynthesis and growth. Finally, these metabolites exert many beneficial effects for human health, thus enhancing the premium quality of plum tomatoes.
Highlights
Until a few decades ago, agriculture intensification was the principal strategy proposed to ensure food security and socio-economic development, guaranteeing continuous productivity from season to season, in optimal and sub-optimal conditions [1]
This study aims to evaluate the effect of different biological treatments on the quantitative parameters associated with yield and the qualitative characteristics, as determined by analysis of metabolomic profiles, of mini plum tomato
The results indicated effects of Trichoderma, metabolite and biopolymer (BP) applications on crop productivity, whereby inoculations with Trichoderma harzianum strain T22 elicited a significant increase in fruit yield in comparison to the untreated control (Figure 1), and a greater increase of 79.3% over the BP treatment alone
Summary
Until a few decades ago, agriculture intensification was the principal strategy proposed to ensure food security and socio-economic development, guaranteeing continuous productivity from season to season, in optimal and sub-optimal conditions [1]. A promising and eco-friendly strategy for agriculture could be the integrated use of diverse non-chemical methods and products in cropping systems, which includes the implementation of plant biostimulants (PBs), based on beneficial microorganisms and molecules of natural origin [4]. Some bioactive metabolites can directly increase elemental (i.e., Ca, Fe, K, Mg, Mn, P and Zn) uptake in the roots [21,22,23] These metabolites are responsible for the direct stimulation of root growth and development, enhancing the surface area and root extension in the soil environment, which improves NUE [11,24,25], by using mechanisms similar to those of other beneficial microbes in the root community (i.e., arbuscular mycorrhiza and plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria) [26,27,28]
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