A field project entitled “Application of Biological Fertilizers for Improvement of Wheat yield in Lorestan Province (west of Iran)" was programmed in framework of the ICARDA project.  This project was performed with close cooperation of the Ministry of Agriculture Jihad and Nature Biotechnology Company (Biorun). Four commercially available biofertilizers named Probio 96, Biofarm, Phosphate BehRoshd, and Biophosphate Biorun along with convenient chemical fertilizers for each region were applied according to company recommendations at planting time (autumn 2017) and crop yield was determined at spring 2018 by harvesting a rectangular plot with definite area.

Satellite map of four wheat field and treatments in Lorestan province, the numbers 1-6 were assigned to Control^-, Control⁺, Biofarm, Probio 96, Phosphate BehRoshd, and BioPhosphate Biorun, respectively.

According to the results, the highest performance was recorded for fields treated with Biofarm (3350 kg per ha.) which was about 36% higher than control^-. Application of Phosphate BehRoshd and Biophosphate Biorun resulted in 16% yield increase. Unexpectedly, a 6% decrease in wheat yield was observed following the use of convenient chemical fertilizers. These results show that nitrogen-fixing bacteria, and to a lesser extent, phosphorus solubilizing bacteria can considerably improve wheat yield in soils of Lorestan province. Besides these effects, biological fertilizers based on plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPRs) have a variety of other beneficial impacts on soil biodiversity, human health and environment. Therefore, these compounds, if correctly propagated, formulated, and used, are suitable candidates for use either alone or in combination with lower doses of chemical fertilizers.

Wheat yield (kg per ha.) and percentage of yield increase in fields treated with chemical fertilizers (positive control) and four biological fertilizers in Lorestan Province