Free Living Nitrogen Fixing Plant Growth Promoting Rhizobacteria: Ecological Roles and Applications
Co-authored with Georgi Dimitrov. Published in Management and Sustainable Development, 2/2025 (112), University of Forestry, Sofia, Bulgaria.
Nitrogen is the most limiting nutrient in most agricultural systems, and synthetic fertilizer has been the default answer for decades — effective, but costly and environmentally damaging.
Certain bacteria — known as Plant Growth Promoting Rhizobacteria, or PGPR — are capable of fixing atmospheric nitrogen and making it available to plants without synthetic inputs. And nitrogen is just the beginning. Several of these same bacteria also solubilize phosphorus and other nutrients that are notoriously expensive, often present in the soil in forms plants simply cannot access.
This paper, co-authored with Georgi Dimitrov and published in Management and Sustainable Development at the University of Forestry, Sofia, sets out to answer the practical question honestly: can PGPR be harnessed to meaningfully reduce fertilizer costs without sacrificing yield? We reviewed the evidence, assessed what realistic farm-level results look like, and designed a practical on-farm trial structure that any farmer can use to test PGPR performance in their own conditions before committing at scale.
You can read the full paper here: PDF 111-I_Rashev_G_Dimitrov_paper-2025 — treeexplorer.top
And find it on the journal’s website here: Management and Sustainable Development, 2/2025
A Bite Size Info post pulling the key practical takeaways for farmers is coming soon.