Influence of Microbial Preparations on Triticum aestivum L. Grain Quality

Abstract

Gluten, protein and amino acid composition play an important role in grain quality assessment. Areas of interest of our research include essential amino acids, which are not synthesized in the human body. It is a commonly known fact that large doses of mineral fertilizers increase grain crops’ yield and quality. However, fertilization leads to undesirable effects—in particular, environmental pollution. This creates a need to replace mineral fertilizers, at least partially, with alternative methods. One such method is the use of microbial preparations in modern technologies for growing cereals. This research, therefore, aimed to study the effect of presowing seed inoculation with a microbial preparation (based on phosphate-mobilizing bacterium Lelliottia nimipressuralis CCM* 32-3) on T. aestivum grain quality, namely the content of gluten, protein and amino acids. The analysis of three-year field experiments showed that the highest values were obtained when using the microbial preparation against the background of mineral fertilizers at the rate of P30. Presowing seed inoculation contributed to a significant increase in grain productivity (by 31.5% compared to control). The content of protein and gluten in the grain also increased up to 12.5 % and 28.0%, while in the control, these figures were 10.8% and 21.2%, respectively. Moreover, the total content of amino acids in wheat grain in the variant inoculation + fertilizers (P30) was the highest compared to those without inoculation. The following excess was noted: by 52% compared to control (without fertilizers); and by 29%, 17% and 10% in variants with mineral fertilizers at the rate of P30, P60, and P90, respectively. The obtained research results indicate that the combined application of mineral fertilizer Ammophos (at the rate of P30) and microbial preparation based on the phosphate-mobilizing bacterium L. nimipressuralis CCM 32-3 for presowing seed inoculation is an effective technique that improves the yield and quality indicators of winter wheat grain under the conditions of southern regions with insufficient moisture supply.

The Effect of Renewable Phosphorus Biofertilizers on Selected Wheat Grain Quality Parameters

“…On the other hand, positive responses of protein content [63,[73][74][75], hectoliter (test) weight [75,76], gluten content [75] to P application compared to no P treatments have been reported by other authors, with no differences between P rates in some cases [73,74]. In other studies conducted under different environmental conditions, the application of external P was observed to have varying effects on the amino acid [77][78][79][80] and elemental content [81,82] of wheat grain.…”

“…It is noteworthy that the experiments revealed also a rather weak response of wheat yield to these bioactivators, with more promising results only under poorer habitat conditions (lower soil P content, worse previous crop; Tables S2, S3 and S5). There are many reports in the literature of significant responses of certain crop/cereal quality traits to PSMs when used alone [85,86] or in combination with a P substrate [73,79,87,88]. Most reports relate to increases in seed/grain protein content under PSMs [73,79,[86][87][88][89][90][91], but increases in hectoliter weight [92,93], sedimentation value [89], starch content [90], and some amino acids [90] and elements [88,92] have also been demonstrated.…”

“…There are many reports in the literature of significant responses of certain crop/cereal quality traits to PSMs when used alone [85,86] or in combination with a P substrate [73,79,87,88]. Most reports relate to increases in seed/grain protein content under PSMs [73,79,[86][87][88][89][90][91], but increases in hectoliter weight [92,93], sedimentation value [89], starch content [90], and some amino acids [90] and elements [88,92] have also been demonstrated. The results of the present study, however, are consistent with those that found no effects of PSMs on yield quality: protein content [73,92,94], gluten content [92], hectoliter weight [85,89,91,95], grain hardness [96], and some element contents [89,92].…”