Dataset on biodiversity and agronomic performance of lentil and chickpea field trials in the Mediterranean Region.

Pulse crops have become more important in food production and consumption systems for the transition towards sustainability. We present an agroecological dataset from 304 samples from 12 legume field trials in five locations across three countries in the Mediterranean. The field trials were established in the seasons 2021/22 and 2022/23 and tested different lentil or chickpea cultivars, inoculants, intercropping and weeding regimes.

Rhizobium croatiense sp. nov. and Rhizobium redzepovicii sp. nov., two new species isolated from nodules of Phaseolus vulgaris in Croatia.

Phaseolus vulgaris is a legume indigenous to America which is nodulated by strains of genus Rhizobium in Croatia. Four of these strains, 13T, 9T, 18T and 8Z are phylogenetically close to the species from the Rhizobium leguminosarum phylogenetic complex in the 16S rRNA gene analysis. The results of both the analyses of the concatenated recA and atpD genes and whole genomes revealed that the strains 13T and 9T clustered with Rhizobium sophoriradicis CCBAU 03470 and the strains 18T and 8Z with Rhizobium ecuadorense CNPSO 671.

Phylogenetic diversity of rhizobia nodulating Phaseolus vulgaris in Croatia and definition of the symbiovar phaseoli within the species Rhizobium pisi.

Phaseolus vulgaris is a legume indigenous to America which is currently cultivated in Europe including countries located at the Southeast of this continent, such as Croatia, where several local landraces are cultivated, most of them of Andean origin. In this work we identify at species and symbiovar levels several fast-growing strains able to form effective symbiosis with P. vulgaris in different Croatian soils.

Genetic Diversity and Symbiotic Efficiency of Indigenous Common Bean Rhizobia in Croatia.

Nodule bacteria (rhizobia) in symbiotic associations with legumes enable considerable entries of biologically fixed nitrogen into soil. Efforts are therefore made to intensify the natural process of symbiotic nitrogen fixation by legume inoculation. Studies of field populations of rhizobia open up the possibility to preserve and probably exploit some indigenous strains with hidden symbiotic or ecological potentials.

Influence of different Sinorhizobium meliloti inocula on abundance of genes involved in nitrogen transformations in the rhizosphere of alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.).

Inoculation of leguminous seeds with selected rhizobial strains is practised in agriculture to ameliorate the plant yield by enhanced root nodulation and nitrogen uptake of the plant. However, effective symbiosis between legumes and rhizobia does not only depend on the capacity of nitrogen fixation but also on the entire nitrogen turnover in the rhizosphere. We investigated the influence of seed inoculation with two indigenous Sinorhizobium meliloti strains exhibiting different efficiency concerning plant growth promotion on nitrogen turnover processes in the rhizosphere during the growth of alfalfa.

Genomic fingerprinting of Bradyrhizobium japonicum isolates by RAPD and rep-PCR.

Genetic diversity of indigenous Bradyrhizobium japonicum population in Croatia was studied by using different PCR-based fingerprinting methods. Characteristic DNA profiles for 20 B. japonicum field isolates and two reference strains were obtained using random primers (RAPD) and two sets of repetitive primers (REP- and ERIC-PCR).