Invigorating Soil-Plant Productivity to Improve Fruit Quality in Cherry Tomato Through Multi-Modal Application of Cyanobacteria
摘要
The efficacy of employing nitrogen fixing photosynthetic cyanobacteria Anabaena torulosa or Anabaena laxa amended aqueous preparations as post-transplantation soil drench and foliar options, towards stimulating the growth and fruit quality of three tomato cultivars was investigated. Seedlings of Pusa Cherry 1 (PC1), Pusa Roma and NS4266, raised through cyanobacterium-primed media/seeds were subjected at specific growth stages, to soil drench with cyanobacterial aqueous preparations, followed by foliar spray selectively, only to the best performing treatment. In PC1, seed priming with A.laxa + drenching, significantly enhanced the soil dehydrogenase activity, polysaccharide and glomalin accumulation by 19.2, 26.5 and 64.9% compared to non-drenching, with 61.8 and 16% increase in leaf nitrate reductase activity and IAA content respectively. In NS4266, A.laxa seed priming + drenching resulted in 11.4 and 17.8% increase in soil dehydrogenase activity and glomalin accumulation respectively, with 35.6% increase in leaf pigments, 2.8-fold and 2.3-fold increase in leaf NR and GS activity respectively over seed priming alone. The multimodal application of A.laxa in PC1, led to 1-2-fold increase in fruit yield, with 1.9-fold and 28% increase in fruit lycopene and phenols, over control. Mantel correlation test revealed a strong correlation of fruit phenols and lycopene with leaf IAA as well as leaf pigments with fruit lycopene. Among all the interactions, PC1-A.laxa interactions led to significant stimulatory effects on soil microbiological activity and nitrogen availability with enhanced yield and phytochemical quality of fruits. This highlighted the significance and specificity of cyanobacterium-mediated modulation of plant metabolism through soil-plant-microbe interactions.