Impacts of Microbial Seed Inoculants on Growth of Field Pea (Pisum sativum L.), and Implications for Plant-insect Interactions

Abstract

Soil microbes that associate with plant roots can benefit plants by increasing the supply or availability of nutrients to increase the plant’s resilience to abiotic and biotic stress, crop germination rates, root and shoot growth, flower production, and yield. We evaluated the impact of five commercially available treatments: 1) B5, Bacillus bacteria, 2) GP, Trichoderma fungi, 3) N2, Paenibacillus nitrogen-fixing bacteria, 4) combination of B5+GP+N2, and 5) water control, and soil-dwelling Collembola on growth and biomass distribution of the specialty crop field pea in a greenhouse setting. We assessed plant growth (e.g., height, biomass of shoots and roots) and results showed that microbial inoculants positively impacted field pea plant growth under specific abiotic environmental stresses.