REVIEW article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Sustainable and Intelligent Phytoprotection
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1661720
Role of Azolla in Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Resilience: A Comprehensive Review
Provisionally accepted
- Fujian Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Fuzhou, China
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Agriculture faces mounting challenges from climate change, soil degradation, and unsustainable agrochemical use, highlighting the need for eco-friendly solutions. Azolla, a fast-growing aquatic fern, has emerged as a multifunctional resource for sustainable farming and climate resilience. Through its symbiosis with Anabaena azollae, it fixes atmospheric nitrogen, reducing dependence on synthetic fertilizers and improving soil health. Azolla also serves as a protein-rich feed for livestock and aquaculture, suppresses weeds and pests in rice systems, and supports water conservation. Beyond agriculture, it contributes to carbon sequestration, mitigates methane emissions, and shows promise in wastewater treatment, bioremediation, and as a feedstock for biofuels and bioplastics. However, large-scale adoption is limited by challenges such as short shelf life, ecological risks, and preservation constraints. This review synthesizes current knowledge on Azolla, emphasizing its biological and ecological functions, highlights practical applications across agriculture, livestock, aquaculture, and environmental management, and outlines key research priorities needed to overcome limitations and enable its integration into climate-smart agricultural and environmental systems.
Keywords: Azolla, sustainable agriculture, Biofertiliser, Carbon Sequestration, methanemitigation, Climate resilience, Biofuels, bioplastics
Received: 08 Jul 2025; Accepted: 01 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Yang, Yang, Deng and Ying. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Zhaoyang Ying, Fujian Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Fuzhou, China
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