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Apr 2021 DOI 10.14302/issn.2639-3166.jar-21-3782
A systematic use of biofertilizers can improve both the quality of a farming system and the parameters of milk. Some issues related to biofertilization experiments on six farms in the Po Valley (NW Italy) involved in the production of milk from dairy cattle fed maize silage or grazed on hay produced from permanent meadows are reported in this paper. Biofertilized maize was found to lower the live stem pH by about 2.3%, and NIR spectroscopy foreshadowing major changes in the composition. Overall, the plant silage was improved in quantity (+10%) but also in quality, as shown by the delayed maturity stage of the leaves (crop maturity index -4%), the lower indigestible NDF content (-7%), and the higher digestible carbohydrates and protein in the whole plants. Such favorable feeding conditions, together with the improved palatability of the feed ration, boosted the nutrient values of the protein (+4.6%) and fat contents (+5.7%) in the milk. Moreover, the functional properties of the milk were ameliorated, as testified by the higher levels of vitamin A (+27%) and vitamin E (+25%) and the reduced levels of saturated fatty acids (-6%), especially myristic (-18%) and stearic (-32%) acids, while the unsaturated acids increased by 15%. As far as economy aspects are concerned, the biofertilization of maize for silage has led to consistent rewards pertaining to the marginal price of the milk, which in turn has led to a value chain increase of about 9%, because of the fields cultivation, but mainly of the cow transformation in milk quality issues. On another farm, intensive maize was substituted with permanent biofertilized meadows, over a greening path, and a + 17% value chain increase was obtained that already derived mainly from the best price for milk quality parameters. Such an evolutionary leap toward a new vision of sustainable agriculture for the environment and for animals, in which a better quality of products, animal welfare and company budget are combined with soil biofertilization, can be considered a bonanza.
Feb 2020 DOI 10.14302/issn.2639-3166.jar-20-3185
Four strains of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal (AM) biofertilizer fungi, combined with two potato cultivars, were in-field tested in a four-replicate arrangement in a factorial experiment. As far as general combinability is concerned, cv. Agria was more responsive to different inocula (yield +5.56%, P 0.02) and to two strains in particular (+8%). On the other hand, the results with Innovator, a cultivar that yields 33% less than Agria, showed a significant reduction in the number of tubers for three AM strains, thus proving a clear genetic Biofertilizer * Cultivar interaction. The study of hay litter-bags has shown a high NIR spectral fingerprint for the Cultivar factor (81%), while the Inoculation factor showed a higher spectral fingerprint in Agria (76%) than in Innovator (65%). The Substrate Induced Respiration predicted from the NIR-SCiO spectra of the litter-bags was significantly increased after inoculation (+6.3%, P 0.04), but appeared lower for Agria (-5.4%) vs. Innovator (P 0.05), with a non-significant interaction. The obtained results show that the adaptation of the AM strains to the genetics of potato cultivars is a first step toward reducing chemical inputs, with consequent benefits for the environment, but without an excessive reduction in yield. The litter-bag technique can therefore be recommended for a simplified monitoring of the complicated plant-mycorrhizosphere relationship.
Jul 2022 DOI 10.14302/issn.2691-6622.ijar-22-4221
Cyanobacteria are considered as one of the important group of organisms having significant ecological, industrial, and biotechnological importance. Cyanobacteria have gained a lot of atten ion in recent years because of their potential applications in biotechnology. This review presents an overview of uses of cyanobacteria in industry agriculture, environment pharmaceutical and medicinal roles and to provide future prospects of the field of cyanobacteria biotechnology. Nowadays cyanobacteria have gained attention researchers because of their various potential applications such as food and feed pharmaceutical industries in medicine, in bioremediation, soil conditioning, as biopolymers, bio adhesives, bioenergy and biofertilizers. Due to presence of wide spectrum of bioactive compounds cyanobacteria has possesses antiviral, antibacterial, antifungal and anticancer activities. Several strains of cyanobacteria are also rich in food supplements. Further nitrogen fixing and soil conditioning capacity of cyanobacteria attracted researchers. Recent studies have also shown that cyanobacteria have capability to degrade environmental pollutants and are also being used as a promising source of alternative energy. Cyanobacteria has also its limitations through bloom production it influnces on the nutrient availability and usage of phytoplankton plants. This review is an effort to forward the valuable information about the qualities of cyanobacteria and their potential role in solving the agricultural and environmental problems for the future welfare of the planet.Thus more efforts should be made in search of more potential strains of cyanobacteria to ensure maximum production of the desired products.
May 2020 DOI 10.14302/issn.2639-3166.jar-20-3363
Rapid analyses methods for the assessment of soil microbiota are lacking. In a commercial farm tomato plants were subjected to different fertilization strategies: 1. mineral Control (C); 2. Organic amendment (O); 3. Organic amendment + Micosat F © biofertilizer (OM). A first rapid method (Litterbag-NIRS) concerned hay litterbags coupled with a smart SCiOTM device. A second method (Foliar-NIRS) used the same device on the leaves. The plants showed positive responses to the amendment and biofertilization in the yield: C 60.5.1 t ha-1vs. 70.8 in O (+17%) and 74.2 in OM (+23% from C and + 5% (P 0.08) from O). The use of Litterbag-NIRS fingerprinting, completed with litterbags phenotyping and elaborated with a multivariate support vector machine classifier provided a similar knowledge to that obtained from microbial and chemical analyses of the soil. The reason for this response is that the analyses were embedded in the Litterbag-NIRS at medium-high precision. A polydromic function was hypothesized in order to disentangle the activities of different soil microbial populations from each other. The organic amendment delayed the functionality of the rapid r-strategist microbial populations, but at the same time activated slow k-strategists to intake the walls of the hay inside the litterbags. In this sense, the Litterbag-NIRS test can provide an effective “swamp” of the microbial fertility of the soil. Briefly, the Litterbag-NIRS coupled with Foliar-NIRS accounted for 95% of the average yield results, and both are therefore recommended for a rational assessment of microbial soil fertility.
Mar 2020 DOI 10.14302/issn.2639-3166.jar-20-3260
The management of the inoculation of a plant’s roots, by means of biofertilizers (BF) containing arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi, is aimed at inducing modifications of the quality of the seeds. It is here shown that a seed-soil treatment can be elicited in the fingerprints of a symbiotic treatment using Near Infra Red (NIR)-SCiO NIR-SCiO spectra collections of single kernels: overall, a sensitivity of 73% and a specificity of 73% have been achieved, thus suggesting that it may be possible to assign the symbiotic origin of corn from just twenty kernels, provided that the dataset is adequately representative of the cultivar and AM. A global correlation study has shown a positive general trend (R2 0.45) of quality vs. quantity, in the sense that an increase in yield corresponded to an increase in the spectral differences between the symbiotic spectra and the control ones, but the inverse was also true, as a result of the parasitic behaviour of the BF treatments. The efficacy of the symbiosis can be back predicted from the NIR spectra; in fact, around 90% of the positive yield outcome results were discriminated from the negative ones. A reduction in the foliar pH (R2 0.37) and an increase in the foliar protein (R2 0.43) were observed as immediate phenotypic signs of a productive symbiosis. The commercial raw composition of the kernels appeared to only be affected slightly by the BF treatments; thus, till now uncharted secondary compounds of the maize kernels are involved, as supported by animal performances.
Aug 2018 DOI 10.14302/issn.2641-9467.jgrc-18-1936
Four nitrogen forms and four biofertilizer were application as well as their interactions on growth analysis of sugar beet (Beta vulgaris L). The important results could be summarized as follow. Urea treatment achieved maximum increase in Leaf Area Index were 69.71, 81.32 and 166.54 at 120, 140 and 160 day in the 1st season, respectively, The highest one was 160.6 in the 2nd also was ammonium nitrate application at 160 days. Urea treatment inclusion in seeds with ntrobin application resulted the highest values of leaf area index (LAI), crop growth rate (CGR) and leaf area duration (LAD) and in the 1st season. A slight increase was 0.03 g/week in this case was found due to urea treatments as compared with the others treatment at the period from Relative growth rate (RGR3) in the 1st season. Ammonium nitrate treatment achieved the maximum values from Crop Growth Rate was 39.16 g/day in (CGR1), 93.24 and 13.5 g/day in (CGR2) and (CGR3) from urea treatment at the 1st season. The highest net assimilation rate was 0.66 g/dm.week achieved by ntrobin as compared the others treatment whereas, the lowest one 0.11 g.dm /week with the phosphorine application. Ammonium sulphate treatment with (phosphorin + ntrobin) obtained the highest net assimilation rate (NAR) in the 1st season. The highest values from leaf area duration were 0.11, 0.19 and 0.15 dm2/week achieved with urea and ntrobin in the 1st season at (LAD2), (LAD3) and (LAD4). Ammonium nitrate treatment with phosphorin obtained the highest leaf area duration (LAD) in the 2nd season. Generally, it could be recommended that fertilizing sugar beet plants variety Ymer with nitrogen forms inoculated with biofertilizer (ntrobin 600gm/fed) increased the growth of sugar beet plants under sandy soil conditions.