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Abstract
The extensive use of chemical fertilizers poses serious collateral problems such as environmental pollution, pest resistance development and food safety decline. Researches focused on applying plant-beneficial microorganisms to partially replace chemical fertilizer use is increasing due to the requirement of sustainable agriculture development. Thus to investigate the possibility of a plant-beneficial Trichoderma strain and its bio-organic fertilizer product in saving chemical fertilizer application and in improving crop quality, a field trial and continuous pot experiments were carried out with tomato. Four treatments were set up: a reduced application of chemical fertilizer (75% of the conventional application) plus Trichoderma-enriched bio-organic fertilizer (BF), organic fertilizer (OF) or Trichoderma spore suspension (SS), with using the 100% rate of the conventional chemical fertilizer as the control (CF). The results showed that the total soluble sugar, Vitamin C and nitrate accumulations were, respectively, +up to 24%, +up to 57% and –up to 62% in the tomatoes of the BF treatment compared to those of the control (CF). And both of the pot and field trials revealed that reduced rates of chemical fertilizer plus bio-organic fertilizer produced tomato yields equivalent to those obtained using the 100% of the chemical fertilizer. However, application with the inoculant alone (SS) or combined with the organic fertilizer alone (OF) would lead to a yield decreases of 6–38% and 9–35% over the control. Since the increased abundance of soil microflora and the enhanced soil fertility frequently showed positive linear correlations especially in the BF-treated soils, we conclude that the efficacy of this bio-organic fertilizer for maintaining a stable tomato yield and improving tomato quality may be due to the improved soil microbial activity. Thus, the results suggest that the Trichoderma bio-organic fertilizer could be employed in combination with the appropriate rates of chemical fertilizers to get maximum benefits regarding yield, quality and fertilizer savings.
Highlights
The extensive use of chemical fertilizers poses serious collateral problems such as environmental pollution, pest resistance development and food safety decline
The number of research papers focused on reducing the inputs of fertilizer through different plant growth-promoting microbes (PGPM) inoculations has increased in recent years, there are few reports concerning the combination of Trichoderma-enriched bio-organic fertilizer and reduced chemical fertilizer, especially in a long-term follow-up study, or concerning its potential effect on food quality[16,17,18]
The results (Table 1) of both field trials and pot experiments indicated that the tomato yields from treatments with 75% chemical fertilizer plus bio-organic fertilizer (BF) were statistically equivalent to the yields obtained using full rate of chemical fertilizer (CF) without inoculants, while the yields obtained using 75% chemical fertilizer with Trichoderma spore suspension (SS) or organic fertilizer (OF) were less than those of the CF treatment in most cases significantly (P < 0.05) (Table 1)
Summary
The extensive use of chemical fertilizers poses serious collateral problems such as environmental pollution, pest resistance development and food safety decline. The number of research papers focused on reducing the inputs of fertilizer through different PGPM inoculations has increased in recent years, there are few reports concerning the combination of Trichoderma-enriched bio-organic fertilizer and reduced chemical fertilizer, especially in a long-term follow-up study, or concerning its potential effect on food quality[16,17,18]. The aims of the present research were to investigate 1) if PGPM inoculants (Trichoderma or Trichoderma bio-organic fertilizer) combined with reduced rates of chemical fertilizer would produce tomato yield and fruit quality equivalent to those obtained using full rates of chemical fertilizer, and 2) how the soil fertility responses to these fertilization regimes in a continuous cropping system. We investigated the effectiveness of a Trichoderma bio-organic fertilizer on tomato yield and quality in an open field and evaluated the effect of Trichoderma inoculation on some chemical and biological properties of the soil related to plant growth via continuous 4-season pot experiments. Strains with the potential of promoting plant growth and providing other benefits must be able to colonize roots[23]; the number of Trichoderma in the rhizosphere soil was determined in this study
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