Bio-organic fertilizer with reduced rates of chemical fertilization improves soil fertility and enhances tomato yield and quality

Abstract The extensive use of chemical fertilizers poses serious collateral problems such as environmental pollution, pest resistance development and food safety decline. Researches focused on applying plant-beneficial microorganisms to partially replace chemical fertilizer use is increasing due to the requirement of sustainable agriculture development. Thus to investigate the possibility of a plant-beneficial Trichoderma strain and its bio-organic fertilizer product in saving chemical fertilizer application and in improving crop quality, a field trial and continuous pot experiments were carried out with tomato. Four treatments were set up: a reduced application of chemical fertilizer (75% of the conventional application) plus Trichoderma -enriched bio-organic fertilizer (BF), organic fertilizer (OF) or Trichoderma spore suspension (SS), with using the 100% rate of the conventional chemical fertilizer as the control (CF). The results showed that the total soluble sugar, Vitamin C and nitrate accumulations were, respectively, +up to 24%, +up to 57% and –up to 62% in the tomatoes of the BF treatment compared to those of the control (CF). And both of the pot and field trials revealed that reduced rates of chemical fertilizer plus bio-organic fertilizer produced tomato yields equivalent to those obtained using the 100% of the chemical fertilizer. However, application with the inoculant alone (SS) or combined with the organic fertilizer alone (OF) would lead to a yield decreases of 6–38% and 9–35% over the control. Since the increased abundance of soil microflora and the enhanced soil fertility frequently showed positive linear correlations especially in the BF-treated soils, we conclude that the efficacy of this bio-organic fertilizer for maintaining a stable tomato yield and improving tomato quality may be due to the improved soil microbial activity. Thus, the results suggest that the Trichoderma bio-organic fertilizer could be employed in combination with the appropriate rates of chemical fertilizers to get maximum benefits regarding yield, quality and fertilizer savings.