Diazotrophic Bacteria Is an Alternative Strategy for Increasing Grain Biofortification, Yield and Zinc Use Efficiency of Maize.

Biofortification of cereal crops with zinc and diazotrophic bacteria is a sustainable solution to nutrient deficiency and hidden hunger. The inoculation of staple grain crops such as maize is increased with reducing productivity losses while improving nutrition and use efficiency under climatic extremes and weathered soils of tropical savannah. Therefore, objectives of our study were to evaluate the influence of seed inoculation with diazotrophic bacteria (No inoculation-Control, , , and ) together with residual effect of soil Zn (absence and presence) on growth, yield, Zn nutrition, Zn use efficiencies, and intake of maize in 2019 and 2020 cropping seasons.