Your new experience awaits. Try the new design now and help us make it even better

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.

Sec. Crop Biology and Sustainability

Effect of coal fly ash zeolite and Bacillus subtilis on water use efficiency of chickpea grown under water deficit

Provisionally accepted
Michele Andrea De SantisMichele Andrea De Santis1*Antonio SatrianiAntonio Satriani2Claudia BelvisoClaudia Belviso2Antonio LettinoAntonio Lettino2Antonio BevilacquaAntonio Bevilacqua1Annalisa d'AmelioAnnalisa d'Amelio1Maria Rosaria CorboMaria Rosaria Corbo1Luigia GiuzioLuigia Giuzio1Damiana TozziDamiana Tozzi1Zina FlagellaZina Flagella1
  • 1Department of Agriculture, Food, Natural Resources and Engineering Sciences, University of Foggia, Foggia, Italy
  • 2Istituto di Metodologie per l'Analisi Ambientale Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Tito Scalo, Italy

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Select one of your emails

You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:

Notify me on publication

Please enter your email address:

If you already have an account, please login

You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here

Chickpea cultivation might be indicated as strategic to improve sustainability in Mediterranean cropping systems; however, global warming and drought may represent limitations for yield stability. Soil amendments, such as zeolite, and microbial inoculation with Plant Growth-Promoting Bacteria (PGPB) are indicated as potential strategies to mitigate water deficiency, but their combined application has been little investigated, especially in pulse crops. To evaluate the effects of synthetic zeolites, PGPB inoculation and water deficit on chickpea, a pot experiment was carried out under controlled conditions. Two chickpea genotypes (Pascià and Sultano) were subjected to a factorial combination of 2% soil-added zeolite and PGPB, under optimal and limiting water conditions (100% and 50% of water requirement). The results showed that water supply strongly influenced crop response with about -50% of grain yield under water deficit. Treatments with zeolite and PGPB (Bacillus subtilis) inoculation led to a significant increase in yield and water use efficiency (WUE) on both chickpea genotypes under water deficit, and their combination further improved harvest index. Under non-limiting water conditions, the increase in WUE was significant with PGPB inoculation. An increase in protein content was also observed in plants treated with zeolite under water deficit, while grain total phenolic content was negatively influenced by water supply. Overall, agronomic treatments contributed to mitigating the effects of water deficit: zeolite improved harvest index and nitrogen uptake while PGPB enhanced WUE. Their combined use appears promising as a strategy to alleviate negative impacts of water deficit on chickpea cultivation.

Keywords: drought, PGPB, pulses, soil amendment, WUE

Received: 31 Oct 2025; Accepted: 05 Dec 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 De Santis, Satriani, Belviso, Lettino, Bevilacqua, d'Amelio, Corbo, Giuzio, Tozzi and Flagella. 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: Michele Andrea De Santis

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Supplementary Material