The Growth Promotion of Peppers (Capsicum annuum L.) by Trichoderma guizhouense NJAU4742-Based Biological Organic Fertilizer: Possible Role of Increasing Nutrient Availabilities.

Qiumei Liu,Xiaohui Meng,Waseem Raza,Dongyang Liu,Qirong Shen,Tuo Li

doi:10.3390/microorganisms8091296

Qiumei Liu, Xiaohui Meng + Show 4 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms8091296

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Journal: Microorganisms	Publication Date: Aug 25, 2020
Citations: 27	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Nanjing Agricultural University

Abstract

Trichoderma spp. is a cosmopolitan group of soil fungi which plays a remarkable role in stimulating plant growth after interacting with plant roots and has good application prospects in intensive agriculture. In this study, rice straw and amino acids improved the population of Trichoderma guizhouense NJAU4742 under solid-state fermentation and helped us develop a new type of organic fertilizer. The effects of this biological organic fertilizer were evaluated in the growth of peppers (Capsicum annuum L.) for two seasons under sandy and mountain soils. In the first season, the yields in T6 (0.06% solid fermentation products in soil) and AT6 (added 0.06% solid fermentation products and 1% amino acid organic fertilizer in soil) treatments were increased by 41.8% and 52.3% in sandy soil and by 51.6% and 46.5% in mountain soil, respectively, compared with chemical fertilizer. During the second season, the same trend was obtained in both sandy and mountain soils. Soil peroxidase activity (125.2 μmol·g−1 dw), urease activity (58.7 μmol·g−1 dw) and invertase activity (13.11 mg·g−1 dw) reached their highest levels in biological organic fertilizer compared to the treatments with chemical fertilizer and solid fermentation products. Redundancy analysis showed that crop yield was positively correlated with enzyme activities, soil organic carbon, total nitrogen, and available phosphorus. Thus, we demonstrated that NJAU4742-enriched biological organic fertilizer could accelerate the transformation of nutrients and promote pepper growth.

Highlights

Trichoderma spp. are cosmopolitan soil fungi that interact a great deal with surrounding roots, soils and organic materials, and are beneficial for agricultural activities by acting as biofungicides, bioremediating soils contaminated with metals or chemical wastes and eliciting plant development and defense [1,2]
The T. guizhouense NJAU4742-based solid microbial spawn was prepared as follows: air-dried rice straw collected from Huai’an, Jiangsu Province was chopped into small fragments 50 mm in length, and ammonium sulfate and an amino acid solution obtained from hydrolyzing various animal hairs were applied separately to optimize the sporulation conditions for NJAU4742
The results showed that the NO3− contents of the treatments with amino acids were decreased more rapidly than those of other treatments, for AT6, in which the NO3− content was decreased by 85.9% compared with that in the first season (FS)

Summary

Introduction

Trichoderma spp. are cosmopolitan soil fungi that interact a great deal with surrounding roots, soils and organic materials, and are beneficial for agricultural activities by acting as biofungicides, bioremediating soils contaminated with metals or chemical wastes and eliciting plant development and defense [1,2]. Chemical fertilizers and pesticides are indispensable elements for the promotion of crop growth and production in agriculture [5]; over-application of these chemicals induces successive negative effects, including the destruction of soil structure, acidification and reduction in nutrient use efficiency [6]. Most BOFs are composed of Bacillus spp., Pseudomonas spp. and Trichoderma spp., which can promote plant growth and increase nutrient use efficiency and inhibit soil-borne disease [9]

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