Agro-Physiologic Traits of Soybean in Response to Biological Fertilizers

Abstract

Plant nutrition is one of the most important environmental factors affecting the quantitative and qualitative yield of crops. This study investigated the effect of rhizobium and azospirillum inoculum and foliar application of humic acid and nutrients of molybdenum, cobalt, and boron on node formation, yield, yield components, and morpho-phenological traits of soybean (Saman cultivar). The experiment was carried out in a factorial randomized complete block design at Golestan Agricultural and Natural Resources Research Center in 2018 and 2019 in three replications. The results showed that experimental treatments had a significant effect on the measured traits. Most of the measured traits, including yield, under the influence of seed treatment with bacteria azospirillum and cobalt, molybdenum, boron showed more increase than the control. It was found that under humic treatment, application of bacteria and nutrients can be effective on improvement of seed yield, so the highest seed yield mean (3268 kg/ha) was obtained by humic acid + Rhizobium+Azospirillum + Co+Mo+B treatments. Also, the highest protein yield mean was obtained by humic acid + Rhizobium + Co+Mo+B treatments (1103 kg/ha) and highest mean of oil yield was obtained by humic acid + Rhizobium+Azospirillum + Co+Mo treatments (577 kg/ha). Overall, the results of this study confirmed the efficiency of nitrogen-fixing bacteria as well as foliar application of micronutrients in increasing soybean yield per unit area.