Drought and low temperatures are major abiotic factors affecting key physiological and biochemical processes and limiting the yields of soybean (Glycine max L. Merr.). To in-crease soybean production in Europe, different agricultural strategies are applied to re-duce abiotic stress, including biostimulants. Therefore, studies on the effectiveness of local strains isolated in Europe are becoming increasingly relevant. In this study two bacterial strains Arthrobacter pascens (AP) and Bradyrhizobium japonicum (BJ) along with plant-derived protein hydrolysate (PH) were analysed with soybean plans under abiotic stress conditions in plant growth chambers. Six treatments (control; AP; BJ; PH; BJ+AP; BJ+AP+PH) were tested to evaluate biostimulation effect before stress induction (VC stage) and to determine stress reduction effect on soybeans after plants recovery period (V3 stage). Biostimulants application has positive effect on soyabean biometric parameters in early plant development stage and post stress periods. More stable long-term effect was found on structural plant development parameters, than on pigment accumulation. The best results on plant biometric parameters were found where (AP) and (BJ+AP+PH) com-bination was inoculated. (BJ+AP+PH) combination was the only effective treatment, which showed significantly different results in pigments indices, compared to the control, after stress period. Author summary Yasha Jamil: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Writing– original draft, Giuseppe Colla: Formal analysis, Writing– original draft, Writing– review & editing, Justina Kaziuniene: Data curation, Formal analysis, Sarune Ramoskaite :Writing– review & editing. Monika Toleikienė: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Writing– original draft, Funding acquisition, Supervision, Writing– review & editing.
Y. Jamil, Justina Kaziūnienė, G. Colla et al.· bioRxiv· 0 citations
Climate change and increasing demand for local protein resources offer a significant reason to introduce soybean (Glycine max (L.)) in Lithuania, which is beyond soybean’s typical distribution area in Europe. This study was carried out to examine the effect of microbial biostimulant inoculation in combination with chemical micronutrients on soybean under the edaphic condition of Lithuania. A three-year field trial (2023–2025) tested five treatments, including uninoculated control, Arthrobacter pascens (AP), Bradyrhizobium japonicum (BJ), BJ + AP, and BJ + AP combined with micronutrients (BJ + AP + MN) on soybean biomass, nodulation, growth, quality, yield, and yield components. BJ alone promoted most of the crop traits because the northern soil lacks biological nitrogen fixation rhizobia. It established nodulation, increased SPAD value, shoot biomass (81%), plant height (19.16%), root biomass (40.1%), protein (6.9%), pods per plant, and grain yield (33.2%) over the uninoculated control. Moreover, AP also elevated biomass and yield components significantly without nodule formation. The effects of combined biostimulant treatments in many cases were not significantly different from the single treatment of BJ. All the treatments exhibited stable performance in growing seasons, although with year-to-year climatic variation. The year 2025 gave the highest biomass and yield because of the good precipitation and temperature over that year. The most positive response of soybean grain yield was observed with inoculation of BJ + AP, which increased grain yield by 35.65% over the untreated control. This study highlights the potential of the novel epiphyte Arthrobacter pascens 13LEP5 as a highly efficient, nodule-independent biofertilizer that can match or exceed the performance of traditional inoculants in soybean production. This study suggests identifying rhizobial inoculation as a strong climate-smart strategy for the launch of a productive, low-input, organic soybean system as an expansion poleward cultivation under the edaphic condition of Lithuania.
Y. Jamil, Sulaiman Khan, Raminta Skipitytė et al.· Agriculture· 0 citations
