Development of Microbially Enriched Potting Media for Sustainable Cucumber Production

Maqshoof Ahmad^1*Usma Irshad¹Abubakar Dar¹Dr. Maryam²Usman Zulfiqar¹Hossam El-Beltagi^3*Gullola Karamatova⁴Erkin Berdiyev⁵Muhammad Zahid Mumtaz⁶

• ¹The Islamia University of Bahawalpur Pakistan, Bahawalpur, Pakistan
• ²The Government Sadiq College Women University Bahawalpur, Bahawalpur, Pakistan
• ³King Faisal University, Al Ahsa, Saudi Arabia
• ⁴National University of Uzbekistan named after Mirzo Ulugbek, Tashkent, Uzbekistan
• ⁵Tashkent State Agrarian University, Tashkent, Uzbekistan
• ⁶College of Agronomy, Gansu Agricultural University, Lanzhou, China

Using biofertilizers developed from plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) is an eco-friendly approach that offers a sustainable system of enhancing crop yields by improving nutrient uptake and soil health. Organic amendments such as compost and peat improve soil fertility, structure, and water retention, promote beneficial microorganisms, support healthier plant growth, and reduce the need for chemical fertilizers. It is hypothesized that a potting media developed by integrating compost, peat, and biofertilizer may not only be helpful for vegetable growers to increase their profitability but also reduce the use of chemical fertilizers. This study evaluates different combinations of biofertilizer and compost to improve plant growth and soil health. The present study was conducted on cucumber as a test crop using potting media developed through different percentages of peat, compost, and silt in the presence and absence of biofertilizer. For this purpose, nine treatments were tested using a completely randomized design (CRD) under factorial arrangement and up to two-way interaction in plastic pots. The experimental results revealed that potting media developed with 15% compost and 25% peat gave statistically better results than treatment where 0% compost was added in inoculated and un-inoculated cases. The plants having seeds inoculated with biofertilizer developed through a consortium of IA-16 (Bacillus sp.), ZM-63 (Bacillus subtilis), ZM-31 (Bacillus aryabhattia), and IA-7 (Paenibacillus polymyxa), and in the presence of 15% compost and 25% peat showed a significant increase in plant growth and physiological parameters i.e. plant height, shoot fresh weight, shoot dry weight, root fresh weight, root dry weight, SPAD values and membrane stability index, and mineral contents in plants such as N (28%), P (23%), K (18%), Zn (13%) and Fe (9%), respectively, as compared to control where 0% compost, 25% peat and 75% silt was applied. The same treatment also effectively improved soil health parameters such as bacterial population, microbial biomass carbon, nitrate nitrogen, ammoniacal nitrogen, Fe, and Zn contents. It is concluded that the combined use of compost (15%) as an organic source and bacterial strains IA16, IA7, ZM63, and ZM31 can be a potential source for developing potting media for sustainable cucumber production.