Abstract
Current challenges of climate changes and demographic expansion have imposed increasing awareness about innovation in sustainable agricultural practices. Farming practices like intercropping have many benefits in terms of nutrient use and yield stability. Improving the performance of intercropping systems by the application of beneficial microorganisms (rhizobacteria and/or mycorrhizae) constitutes a promising strategy. In this regard, this study aimed to assess the effect of inoculation with beneficial microorganisms on wheat as monocrop or intercrop with faba bean, using four inoculation treatments: (i) inoculation with rhizobacteria, (ii) inoculation with mycorrhizae, (iii) inoculation with the rhizobacteria-mycorrhizae consortium, and (iv) a control treatment consisting of uninoculated plants. Results showed that rhizobacteria-mycorrhizae co-inoculation under intercropping system improved plant dry weight and spike weight of wheat by 375 and 162%, respectively, compared with uninoculated intercropped wheat. The thousand-seed weight was improved by 86% in wheat intercropped and inoculated with the rhizobacteria-mycorrhizae consortium. Furthermore, higher P and N concentrations were observed in shoots and spikes of wheat intercropped with faba bean, and this increase was also observed in response to inoculation with the rhizobacteria-mycorrhizae consortium in terms of P in shoots and spikes (by 74 and 18%) of intercropped wheat. In addition, intercropped wheat has significantly accumulated sugar in the seeds for all inoculated treatments (except inoculation with mycorrhizae). Overall, these findings revealed that intercropping and inoculation yielded better, suggesting that intercropping combined with the application of beneficial microorganisms, such as rhizobacteria and mycorrhizae, have the potential to improve overall crop yield.
Highlights
Wheat is one of the most important crops worldwide, occupying second crop production worldwide (734 MT) after rice (1,100 MT), [IGC (International Grains Council), 2017]
The combined application of rhizobacteria-mycorrhizae resulted in arbuscular-mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) colonization >95%; this colonization showed no significant difference in comparison with M treatments
Intercropped plants inoculated with the mixture of rhizobacteria and mycorrhizae showed an improvement of 326% in terms of shoot dry weight compared with uninoculated plants
Summary
Wheat is one of the most important crops worldwide, occupying second crop production worldwide (734 MT) after rice (1,100 MT), [IGC (International Grains Council), 2017]. Wheat is considered as the source of food for human populations and the main source of protein (Shewry and Hey, 2015), as it is considered a privileged supply for animal feed and multiple industrial applications. Almost all the nutrition of the population of the world is provided by grain foods, nearly 95% of which is mainly produced by cereal crops (Shewry and Hey, 2015). Wheat grains contain most of the nutrients, including carbohydrates (60–80%, especially starch), proteins (8–17%) with a sufficient amount of essential amino acids (except lysine, tryptophan, and methionine), lipids (1.5–2%), minerals (1.5–2%), vitamins, and fiber (Kumar et al, 2011; Shewry and Hey, 2015). Finding new sustainable alternatives to improve wheat production is a major challenge for the agriculture of today
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