More than half of the fertilizer applied to farmers’ field is lost, causing significant economic losses. To overcome this, a polymer-coated rock mineral fertilizer was investigated using wheat ( Triticum aestivum L. cv. Wyalkatchem). In addition, a multispecies microbial inoculant was added to seeds as a biostimulant to enhance fertilizer use efficiency. Thus, this glasshouse experiment investigated the effect of polymer-coated rock mineral fertilizer with or without a multispecies microbial inoculant on wheat growth in a sandy soil. We hypothesized that the polymer-coated rock mineral fertilizer combined with a microbial inoculant would be more effective than non-coated fertilizer at increasing growth, nutrient uptake, and yield of wheat in sandy soil. Both the polymer-coated and non-coated rock mineral fertilizer, either with or without microbial seed inoculation, increased shoot growth at tillering and maturity but root growth only increased at maturity. Grain yield did not differ between the fertilizer treatments except that they were lower for the non-coated rock mineral fertilizer when combined with microbial inoculation. In the absence of microbial inoculation, soil amended with polymer-coated fertilizer had lower residual soil P and K. The hypothesis that microbial inoculation would improve the growth, nutrient uptake, and yield of wheat was not supported in this experiment. Sequencing of 16S rRNA identified Proteobacteria and Actinobacteria as the key phyla in rhizosphere soil. Fertilizer treatments altered alpha diversity (OTU richness, Inverse Simpson and Fisher indices) but had no effect on evenness . This polymer-coated rock mineral fertilizer has potential to substitute for or complement more soluble fertilizers, but there was no benefit of inclusion of the multispecies microbial inoculant on plant growth or yield.

中文翻译：

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聚合物涂层岩石矿物肥料具有替代可溶性肥料的潜力，可提高小麦的生长、养分吸收和产量

施于农田的化肥有一半以上流失，造成重大经济损失。为了克服这个问题，使用小麦（Triticum aestivum L. cv. Wyalkatchem）研究了一种聚合物包覆的岩石矿物肥料。此外，在种子中添加了多种微生物接种剂作为生物刺激剂，以提高肥料的利用率。因此，该温室试验研究了聚合物包覆岩石矿物肥料在含或不含多种微生物接种剂的情况下对沙质土壤中小麦生长的影响。我们假设，在增加沙质土壤中小麦的生长、养分吸收和产量方面，聚合物涂层岩石矿物肥料与微生物接种剂相结合将比非涂层肥料更有效。聚合物涂层和非涂层岩石矿物肥料，无论是否接种微生物种子，分蘖和成熟时的枝条生长都增加，但根生长仅在成熟时增加。不同肥料处理之间的谷物产量没有差异，只是当与微生物接种相结合时，非包膜岩石矿物肥料的产量较低。在没有接种微生物的情况下，用聚合物包膜肥料改良的土壤具有较低的土壤 P 和 K。该实验不支持微生物接种会改善小麦的生长、养分吸收和产量的假设。16S rRNA 测序确定变形菌和放线菌是根际土壤中的关键门。肥料处理改变了 alpha 多样性（OTU 丰富度、逆辛普森和费舍尔指数），但对均匀度没有影响。