Encapsulation of Biofertilizers, Biopesticides and Biocontrol Agents

From Lab to Field: Biofertilizers in the 21st Century

“…In the first scenario, seeds are uniformly coated, often with substances like Arabic gum and xanthan gum, and subsequently subjected to shade drying for field application. Examples of commercially available products for seed application include Quantum 4000 ® (CAS 68038-70-0, containing B. subtilis), Dagger-G ® (Ecogen Inc.; Langhorne, PA, USA; containing P. fluorescens), and BlueCircle ® (Stine Seed Farm; Adel, GA, USA; containing Pseudomonas cepacia) [143]. Seedling root dipping, as the second method, entails immersing the seedling roots in a water-based biofertilizer suspension for a specified duration, typically determined by the crop variety, prior to transplanting them into the soil.…”

“…Conversely, if it is to be applied as a seedling root dip, water and manure are added to the mixture. Moreover, it can be blended with compost for use as a soil amendment, or it can be dissolved in irrigation water and directly incorporated into the soil during watering [143].…”

“…Encapsulation creates a protective capsule around the active compounds or cells, ensuring their viability and stability during storage and transportation; easing the application and field performance; as well as reducing the contamination risk [131][132][133]. Additionally, encapsulation enhances the success even under harsh environmental conditions, such as high salinity, extreme pH levels, temperature variations, or drought stress [132,143]. Initially, encapsulation mainly involved entrapping cells within polymeric structures of large dimensions (millimeters), referred to as macroencapsulates.…”

“…Typically, microencapsulation involves the use of hydrogels to encapsulate microbial cells or compounds. The coating materials commonly employed are either natural (such as starch, gelatine, or sucrose), or synthetic polymers (like polyurethane foam or polypropylene), although alginate stands out as the most frequently used biomaterial for encapsulation, mainly due to its non-detrimental impact on microbial survival and its resilience for storage and transportation purposes [24,131,133,143]. As a result, different PGPR strains have been encapsulated using alginate supplemented with diverse additives.…”