Maize, a globally significant cereal, is increasingly cultivated under challenging environmental conditions, necessitating innovations in sustainable agriculture. This study evaluates the synergistic effects of a novel technique combining a Bacillus velezensis A6 strain with a plant extract from the Lamiales order on maize growth and stress resilience. Employing a pilot field trial, this study was conducted on the “La Añoreta” experimental farm of the ECONATUR group, where various biostimulant treatments, including bacterial and plant extract applications, were tested against a control group. The treatments were applied during key vegetative growth stages (V10-Tenth-Leaf, VT-Tassel, R1-Silking) and monitored for effects on plant height, biomass, and fumonisin content. The results suggest that the combined treatment of Bacillus velezensis A6 and the plant extract increases maize height (32.87%) and yield (62.93%) and also reduces fumonisin concentrations, improving its resistance to stress, compared to the control and other treatments. This study highlights the potential of microbial and botanical biostimulants and its novel combination for improving crop productivity and sustainability, suggesting that such synergistic combinations could play a crucial role in enhancing agricultural resilience to environmental stresses.

The market for bacteria as agricultural biofertilizers is growing rapidly, offering plant-growth stimulants; biofungicides; and, more recently, protectors against extreme environmental factors, such as drought. This abundance makes it challenging for the end user to decide on the product to use. In this work, we describe the isolation of a strain of Bacillus velezensis (belonging to the operational group Bacillus amyloliquefaciens) for use as a plant-growth-promoting rhizobacterium, a biofungicide, and a protector against drought. To compare its effectiveness with other commercial strains of the same operational group, Bacillus amyloliquefaciens, we analyzed its ability to promote the growth of pepper plants and protect them against drought, as well as its fungicidal activity through antibiosis and antagonism tests, its ability to solubilize potassium and phosphates, and its ability to produce siderophores. Finally, we used a probit function, a type of regression analysis used to model the outcomes of analyses, to quantify the biostimulatory effectiveness of the different plant-growth-promoting rhizobacteria, developing what we have called the Agricultural Protection Against Stress Index, which allowed us to numerically compare the four commercial strains of the operational group Bacillus amyloliquefaciens, based on a Delphi method—a type of regression analysis that can be used to model a cumulative normal distribution—and integrate the results from our panel of tests into a single value.

El cultivo del olivo (Olea europaea) es un motor socioeconómico en la cuenca mediterránea, con una notable expansión en los últimos años. Sus residuos representan una oportunidad para la transición a la bioeconomía. Los grandes volúmenes de agua empleados poseen una alta carga orgánica, con polifenoles como el hidroxitirosol (HT). Mediante nuevos procesos tecnológicos, ha sido posible su extracción y purificación y, por tanto, su empleo en diferentes industrias, como la agroalimentaria. Las propiedades antioxidantes y complejantes de los polifenoles, con incidencia en el equilibrio hormonal de los cultivos, le confieren un gran potencial de uso como insumos agrícolas. Como resultado se ha formulado e-OLIVE, un bioestimulante que i) apoya la eliminación de especies reactivas oxígeno (ROS) en situaciones de estrés hídrico y ii) actúa sobre el equilibrio hormonal del cultivo. En condiciones naturales, e-OLIVE ha incrementado la producción a través de una menor caída fisiológica y un superior peso de frutos, además de incrementar el rendimiento graso. Estos resultados se han alcanzado mediante una superior traslocación de nutrientes y la expresión de hormonas y reguladores hormonales como AIA, AS y ABA.