Plant probiotic for the biological recomposition of soybean plants grown in degraded production environments

Abstract

Nowadays, in Brazil, in intensively cultivated agricultural areas through sequential planting, it has been observed the increase in occurrence of areas with indicative of biological degradation. These indicatives can be diagnosed by the gradual loss of profitability, verified by the constant increase, comparing different agricultural years, of the need of the application of pesticides for the productive maintenance of these crops, due to the increasingly severe occurrence of pests and diseases, leading to the use of emergency management techniques, with high environmental impact potential. Research has indicated that there may be a collapse of productive systems associated to the sequential cultivation of soybean for long periods, due to the exhaustion of the biological re-installment process on these growing environments. It is known that the micro-biota inside the plant, entophytic microorganisms, contribute to the relationships of the plant with adverse environments, aiding in the development of the plant. It is possible that in intensively cultivated areas the micro-biota of these commercially exploited plants may no longer be able to function or have been severely modified due to extreme alteration in the growing environment. Therefore, the innovation proposed in this project intends to develop a technology of biological re-installment of plants grown in degraded fields, aiming the productive and economic revitalization of the system through the use of vegetal extract, coming from healthy soybean plants, previously cultivated under controlled conditions, applying it in seeds and newly germinated plants for the formation of commercial crops of the same species, in the environments with predictions of biotic imbalance and with high biological fragility, assuming the hypothesis that the plants inoculated with the microbiological content contained in the vegetal extract of healthy plants improve their tolerance to common biotic and abiotic stresses in soybean production environments. The variables studied in the soybeans field experiments, prior to the establishment of the crop will be: cultivated soil fertility; granulometry analysis to estimate the sand, silt and clay contents; Carbon content; Soil density and soil nematode incidence. The variables studied during the development of the soybean crop will be: plagues and diseases of the crop, enzymatic activity of the rhizospheric soil and the plant, evaluation of microbial diversity in the soil by metagenomic analysis, evaluation of plant development and crop productivity. With the results of the metagenomic analyzes carried out in soybean plants conducted in biologically degraded environments and balanced environments, with or without the application of the plant extract in its seeds or 2-day germinated plants, it will be possible to test whether the microbiota of a healthy plant of the same species (Soybean) is different from a plant grown in a degraded environment and if there is an efficient inoculation process of the developing plant under adverse conditions, capable of promoting physiological, general phytosanitary and yield improvements. The healthy plants used for the production of plant extract with positive microbial contents will be cultivated in a controlled environment or clonal garden, aiming maximum growing and phytosanitary control, being developed in places with a soil rich in organic matter and without intensive usage of pesticides. So that, deep changes in the endophytic microorganisms of these plants are not promoted for the production of vegetal extract. The technical verification of the use of a plant extract from healthy plants grown in a clonal garden to treat plants of the same species sequentially cultivated in environments with biotic imbalance will result in an advantageous agricultural input, sustainable, with low environmental impact and absent in the market. (AU)