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Both the contribution of soil nitrogen and of biological N2 fixation to sugarcane can increase with the inoculation of diazotrophic bacteria

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Abstract

Aims

This study was performed to determine if the contribution of biological N2 fixation (BNF) associated with Brazilian sugarcane cultivars could be increased by the inoculation with N2-fixing bacteria.

Methods

The field experiment was planted with two sugarcane cultivars, inoculated or not, with five N2-fixing bacteria. All plant tissues, including belowground, were harvested for determination of dry matter, N accumulation and 15N abundance at five occasions until 450 days after planting.

Results

Inoculation significantly increased total N accumulation in the aerial tissue of cultivar RB867515 from 147 to 199 kg N ha−1 and cultivar RB92579 from 126 to 192 N kg ha−1. At final harvest 15N abundances of entire sugarcane plants compared to that of plant-available N indicated that BNF inputs were over 64%. Total N derived from BNF and the soil was increased by inoculation, by 50 and 17 kg N ha−1 and 36 and 67 kg N ha−1, for the two cultivars respectively.

Conclusions

Without inoculation, the two sugarcane cultivars obtained over 65% of N from BNF. Inoculation with the five component inoculant increased N accumulation from soil and BNF but with little impact on the proportion of N derived from BNF.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank Ernani Meirelles, Alderi F. da Silva and their diligent team of field workers for managing the experiment and Altiberto M. Baêta, Roberto G. de Souza and Renato M. da Rocha for the nitrogen and 15N abundance measurements. The authors are grateful to Dr. Euan James (Hutton Institute, Dundee, Scotland) and Dr. José Ivo Baldani (Embrapa Agrobiologia) for their valuable advice on possible strategies to advance the investigations of BNF in sugarcane. The work was funded by Embrapa, the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq - Grant Number INCT 465133/2014-2), the Newton Fund grant number B/N012476/1 “Understanding and Exploiting Biological Nitrogen Fixation for Improvement of Brazilian Agriculture”, co-funded by the UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and the Brazilian National Council for State Funding Agencies (CONFAP). The first author, DSM gratefully acknowledges a PhD fellowship from CAPES (Ministry of Education) and the authors VMR, BJRA, SS and RMB acknowledge grants from the program Cientista de Nosso Estado from the Carlos Chagas Rio State Research Foundation (FAPERJ) and Research Productivity Fellowships from CNPq.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Soils Department, Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro, BR-465, Km 07, Seropédica, Rio de Janeiro, 23890-000, Brazil

    Doãn Sperandio Martins, Nivaldo Schultz, Willian Pereira & Jailson Silva Sousa

  2. Embrapa Agrobiologia, Km 07, Rodovia BR 465, Seropédica, RJ, 23891-000, Brazil

    Veronica Massena Reis, Bruno J. R. Alves, Segundo Urquiaga & Robert Michael Boddey

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  1. Doãn Sperandio Martins
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  2. Veronica Massena Reis
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  3. Nivaldo Schultz
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  5. Segundo Urquiaga
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Correspondence to Robert Michael Boddey.

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Martins, D.S., Reis, V.M., Schultz, N. et al. Both the contribution of soil nitrogen and of biological N2 fixation to sugarcane can increase with the inoculation of diazotrophic bacteria. Plant Soil 454, 155–169 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-020-04621-1

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