Impact of nanophos in agriculture to improve functional bacterial community and crop productivity

Abstract

Background Since the World’s population is increasing, it’s critical to boost agricultural productivity to meet the rising demand for food and reduce poverty. Fertilizers are widely used in traditional agricultural methods to improve crop yield, but they have a number of negative environmental consequences such as nutrient losses, decrease fertility and polluted water and air. Researchers have been focusing on alternative crop fertilizers mechanisms to address these issues in recent years and nanobiofertilizers have frequently been suggested. “Nanophos” is a biofertilizer and contains phosphate-solubilising bacteria that solubilises insoluble phosphate and makes it available to the plants for improved growth and productivity as well as maintain soil health. This study evaluated the impact of nanophos on the growth and development of maize plants and its rhizospheric microbial community such as NPK solubilising microbes, soil enzyme activities and soil protein under field condition after 20, 40 and 60 days in randomized block design. Results Maize seeds treated with nanophos showed improvement in germination of seeds, plant height, number of leaves, photosynthetic pigments, total sugar and protein level over control. A higher activity of phenol, flavonoid, antioxidant activities and yield were noticed in nanophos treated plants over control. Positive shift in total bacterial count, nitrogen fixing bacteria, phosphate and potassium solubilizers were observed in the presence of nanophos as compared to control. Soil enzyme activities were significantly (P < 0.05) improved in treated soil and showed moderately correlation between treatments estimated using Spearman rank correlation test. Real time PCR and total soil protein content analysis showed enhanced microbial population in nanophos treated soil. Obtained results showed that nanophos improved the soil microbial population and thus improved the plant growth and productivity. Conclusion The study concluded a stimulating effect of nanophos on Zea mays health and productivity and indicates good response towards total bacterial, NPK solubilising bacteria, soil enzymes, soil protein which equally showed positive response towards soil nutrient status. It can be a potential way to boost soil nutrient use efficiency and can be a better alternative to fertilizers used in the agriculture.

Assessment of Soil Health Indicators Under the Influence of Nanocompounds and Bacillus spp. in Field Condition

“…Tarafdar et al (2013) reported significant improvement of rhizospheric microbial population and activities of acid and alkaline phosphatase and phytase in cluster bean rhizosphere when treated with ZnONPs (10 mg L −1 ). Application of nanophos, which consists of the phosphate solubilizing bacteria, also improved the different soil enzyme activities under maize cultivation (Chaudhary et al, 2021e). Silver NPs were not affected by the soil enzyme activities but decrease the β-glucosidase activity was maximum in T8 and T9 treatments in the experimental soil throughout the experimental period.…”

Effects of Continuous Cropping and Two Alleviating Agents on Root Yield and Active Constituents of Salvia miltiorrhiza

“…Microbial biofertilizers are increasingly applied in agricultural activities to improve plant growth, yield, and quality via phytohormone production, phosphate solubilization, promoting secondary metabolite accumulation, and adjusting imbalanced soil microbial communities in harsh soil environments. , It was reported that the application of Trichoderma sp. in combination with G.…”

“…Microbial biofertilizers are increasingly applied in agricultural activities to improve plant growth, yield, and quality via phytohormone production, 38 phosphate solubilization, 39 promoting secondary metabolite accumulation, 40 and adjusting imbalanced soil microbial communities in harsh soil environments. 39,41 It was reported that the application of Trichoderma sp. in combination with G. versiforme could improve the content of Sal B and Tan IIA in SM roots under CC conditions.…”

The Role of Synthetic Microbial Communities (SynCom) in Sustainable Agriculture

“…Over the past two decades, microbes with plant growthpromoting (PGP) traits have been isolated and used as inoculants to improve crop production (Finkel et al, 2017;Banerjee et al, 2018;de Souza et al, 2020). Microbes assist plant growth either by enhancing nutrient acquisition such as nitrogen fixation, phosphorus solubilization, and siderophore production or producing plant growth promoting substances (Olanrewaju et al, 2017;Saleem et al, 2018;Chaudhary et al, 2021;Joshi et al, 2021). In addition, microbial inoculants have the potential to suppress several pathogenic organisms (Yasmin et al, 2016;Olanrewaju et al, 2017;Abbasi et al, 2021).…”