Inoculation with Phosphate Solubilizing Bacterial Consortia Enhanced Rock P Agronomic Efficiency and Yield of Wheat Under Low P Conditions

Phosphate-solubilizing bacteria (PSB) are well known to enhance P availability and crop yield. However, profound understanding of crop responses to inoculation under contrasting conditions and throughout crop growth stages are so far incomplete. That is the case when employing bacterial consortia, which involve intricate species interactions likely ensuring complementary functions for a better plant growth and nutrient acquisition. This study, therefore, aimed to evaluate agro-physiological responses of durum wheat (under different growth stages) to the combined application of three PSB consortia (BCa, BCb, and BCc) and rock P (RP) versus three uninoculated control treatments (unfertilized “P0”, fertilized with RP and orthophosphate “OrthoP”) under controlled and field conditions. Overall, BC inoculation significantly enhanced grain yield, nutrient uptake, and physiological performance under both controlled and field conditions, and at a comparable level to OrthoP application. Particularly, BCc significantly enhanced biomass and number of spikes under field conditions yielding 2-times higher grain yield than uninoculated RP treatment. This improvement can be attributed to enhanced biomass of shoots (40.6 and 102.1