Effects of bioactive products on Cicer arietinum L. plants

Abstract

The use of biostimulants and biofertilizers in agriculture has increased in the last years. The objective of this work was to determine the Spirufert biofertilizer influence on chickpea yield and the soil chemical properties and the effect of its joint application with Biobras-16^® on the yield. In a first experiment, inoculated seeds with Azofert® before sowing, of BS70 cultivar were used. Three treatments were applied: T1 (Azofert^®), T2 (Azofert^® + one leaf spray with Spirufert) and T3 (Azofert^® + two leaf sprays with Spirufert). In the second, N27 and N38 cultivars were used and two foliar sprays were made with a mixture of Spirufert and Biobras-16^®. In the first experiment, it was shown that, when performing two applications (T3) there were differences with the control treatment; in the number of pods, grains and grain mass per plant and the yield. Although it did not differ from the treatment where only one application (T2) was made, there were also no differences in the N, P, K concentrations of the grains between the treatments. A decrease in the magnesium concentration (2.2 cmol kg^-1 compared to 0.5 cmol kg^-1 of the control treatment) and an increase in the phosphorus concentration (107.5 mg kg^-1 compared to 89 mg kg^-1 of the control treatment) were found in the soil, in the area where the biofertilizer treatments were. The foliar spray of Spirufert with Biobras-16^® increased the number of pods per plant, number and weight of grains per plant and the yield of N27 and N38 cultivars, this latter with increases of 21 and 28 %, respectively.