article · Agronomy
Environmental stresses such as water deficit and soil salinity restrict crop yields. A two-season field trial investigated combining biochar with plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria, specifically Pseudomonas koreensis and Bacillus coagulans, across multiple irrigation intervals in salt-affected soil. Applying biochar alongside these beneficial bacteria improved soil moisture retention and overall physicochemical properties. In rice plants, the combined treatment increased chlorophyll levels, relative water content, stomatal conductance, and potassium-to-sodium ratios, whilst reducing tissue sodium and proline concentrations. Uptake of essential nutrients, including nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, also rose substantially. Consequently, the combination of biochar and rhizobacteria delivered the highest rice yields, with an eight-day irrigation interval performing on par with a six-day schedule, showing that integrated soil amendments can mitigate the combined harms of drought and salinity.
Drought and soil salinity frequently threaten cereal production in arid and semi-arid regions. Demonstrating that biochar and beneficial soil bacteria can work together to protect crops against these combined challenges offers a practical approach to conserve scarce irrigation water, rehabilitate salt-degraded land, and stabilise grain production without relying solely on conventional chemical inputs.
This work demonstrates an applied, field-tested agronomic intervention for rice farmers working in drought-prone and salt-affected areas. Developers of biofertilisers, microbial inoculants, and biochar soil amendments could use these findings to formulate combined soil-enrichment products. Because testing was limited to two seasons of field trials, real-world deployment will require scalable delivery methods for live bacteria on biochar substrates and cost-benefit validation for commercial farming.
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Environmental stressors negatively affect crop growth and yield. Limited information is available about the synergistic use of biochar and plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR). A field study was conducted to evaluate the effect of biochar in combination with PGPR (Pseudomonas koreensis and Bacillus coagulans) for alleviating water deficit and saline soil in rice (Oryza sativa L.). Two growing seasons, 2017 and 2018, were examined using twelve combinations of three irrigation intervals every 6 days (I1), 8 days (I2), and 10 days (I3) and four soil treatments (control, PGPR, biochar, and combination of PGPR + biochar) in salt-affected soil. The findings exhibited that synergistic use of biochar and PGPR alleviated the negative effect of these stressors. The integrative use of biochar and PGPR caused an increment in soil moisture content and physicochemical properties. Significant increasing in chlorophyll content, relative water content, stomatal conductance, K+ and K+/Na+ contents occurred with decreasing proline content and Na+ content, which confirmed the efficacy of this approach. As a result, the highest yield and its related traits were attained when biochar and PGPR were added together under irrigation interval I1, which was on par with I2. We concluded that increased nutrients uptake (N, P, and K) were the cause of the superior rice productivity resulting from co-PGPR biochar. Synergistic use of biochar and PGPR could be an effective strategy for improving plant growth and productivity under stressors.
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DOI: 10.3390/agronomy9120847
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