Rice is a major food worlwide. The cost of rice fertilisation using mined fertilisers such as nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K) amounts to 30-35% of the cropping cost, and is still increasing. This issue could be solved by replacing mined fertiliser by biofertilisers that contain microbes helping the plant to grow, so-called ‘plant growth-promoting microorganisms’. The report by Rose et al. indeed show that inoculant biofertilizers can replace up to 52% of mined nitrogen fertiliser without loss of yield.
