BIOFERTILIZERS AS COMPLEMENTS TO SYNTHETIC AND ORGANIC FERTILIZATION - Fertilizers: Components, Uses in Agriculture and Environmental Impacts - page 155

Chapter 6
B IOFERTILIZERS A S COMPLEMENTS TO S YNTHETIC
AND O RGANIC F ERTILIZATION
Gerardo Armando Aguado-Santacruz 1,2,4,  , Blanca Moreno-Gómez 2 ,
Quintín Rascón-Cruz 3 , Cesar Aguirre-Mancilla 1 ,
Juan Antonio Espinosa-Solís 4
and Carmen Daniela González-Barriga 5
1 Programa de Posgrado. Instituto Tecnológico de Roque. Celaya, Gto. México
2 Laboratorio de Biotecnología Microbiana.
C.E. Bajío-INIFAP. Celaya, Gto. México
3 Facultad de Ciencias Químicas. Universidad Autónoma de Chihuahua.
Chihuahua, Chih. México
4 BIOqualitum S.A. de C.V. Celaya, Gto. México
5 Instituto Tecnológico de Monterrey. Laboratorio de Biotecnología.
Chihuahua, Chih. México
A BSTRACT
Biofertilizers are agrobiotechnological products composed by microorganisms that
are added to the agricultural crops to stimulate growth and production. Although they are
sometimes considered as substitutes of the synthetic fertilizers, they indeed have been
shown to act complementarily to chemical and organic fertilizers to improve plant
performance. Synthetic fertilizers are added to the crops to support plant growth and
foster crop production, but regrettably at most 50% of the synthetic nitrogen fertilizers
can be absorbed by the plants. Microorganisms can positively affect plant performance in
different ways, but they can also increase the percentage of the synthetic fertilizers that
can be absorbed by the plants. In this chapter we will analyze the use of biofertilizers as
complements to synthetic and organic fertilizers and the beneficial output of considering
a chemical-organic-biological approach in crop production.