ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Symbiotic Interactions
This article is part of the Research TopicMicrobial Strategies for Drought Stress MitigationView all articles
Eukaryotic microalgae-bacteria synthetic consortia boost crop productivity and drought tolerance in bread wheat (Triticum aestivum)
Provisionally accepted
Celeste Molina-Favero1
Lara Sanchez Rizza2,3Angie Melissa Gonzalez Olano2
Guillermo Maroniche2,4Mauro Polizzi5Eduardo de Gerónimo1,2Cecilia Creus4
Leonardo Curatti2,3
LUCIANA ANABELLA PAGNUSSAT2,3,6*- 1Instituto Nacional de Tecnologia Agropecuaria, Buenos Aires, Argentina
- 2CONICET Mar del Plata, Mar del Plata, Argentina
- 3Instituto de Investigaciones en Biodiversidad y Biotecnologia, Mar del Plata, Argentina
- 4Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias, San José de Balcarce, Argentina
- 5Cinco Surcos, Mar del plata, Argentina
- 6Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias, Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, Balcarce, Argentina
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Wheat provides the main source of nourishment for more than 40% of the global population, making it an essential crop. The challenge of overseeing crop management to guarantee water efficiency has been enhanced by the increase in rainfall unpredictability caused by climate change. Plant-growth-promoting bacteria (PGPBs) are beneficial microorganisms capable of improving crop yield and adaptability to environmental stresses. Single-celled eukaryotic algae, on the other hand, are comparatively understudied organisms that exhibit plant-biostimulant properties. Our research demonstrates that co-inoculation of Azospirillum argentinensis Az39 with the microalgae Scenedesmus obliquus C1S increases bacterial root colonization and the sole inoculation with microalgae improves germination and post-germinative growth under drought conditions. Field trials conducted on 2022 and 2024, under the influence of environmental drought conditions, revealed a 36% boost in grain yield and a 26.2% improvement in crop water productivity resulting from inoculation with microalgae-PGPB consortia. Moreover, under induced drought conditions, seedlings inoculated with microalgae showed a 50% increase in root dry weight. Notably, our results also reveal that inoculation efficiency was affected by tillage methods. The findings presented herein disclose a promising potential for the development of a novel eukaryotic microalgae-PGPB synthetic consortia inoculant that enhances root colonization by PGPBs and improves wheat crop water productivity in the field.
Keywords: Microalgae, wheat, Plant growth promoting rhizobacteria, drought, rhizosphere
Received: 15 Oct 2025; Accepted: 24 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Molina-Favero, Sanchez Rizza, Gonzalez Olano, Maroniche, Polizzi, de Gerónimo, Creus, Curatti and PAGNUSSAT. 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: LUCIANA ANABELLA PAGNUSSAT
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