Biostimulant for sustainable pulse production - a review

Globally, agriculture is facing a pressing situation, such as climate change, degradation of soil health and the necessity for sustainable food production. Biostimulants provide novel solutions to improve agricultural practices and crop productivity. Biostimulants are plant-promoting substances/microorganisms that are organic and help to increase the nutrient uptake, growth and yield of the crop, provide tolerance to abiotic and biotic challenges and improve product quality. Humic acid (HA), fulvic acid (FA), protein hydrolysates, seaweed extracts, chitosan, microbial biostimulants such as arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR), inorganic compounds like silicon, selenium and phosphite are different types of biostimulants to enhance plant production and productivity. Unlike fertilizers, biostimulants do not pose any threat to the environment. Pulses are rich in nutrients and increasing their productivity can increase the health of the people and result in an overall increase in the growth of economy. Despite having excellent nutritional value and agricultural importance, the productivity of pulses is not up to its potential. The production and productivity are inadequate to meet the growing population's demand. Farmers growing pulses are unaware of certain package of practices and recent technological developments. Numerous studies report improvement in biomass accumulation, The present review is focused on how application of biostimulants increase the growth and yield of pulses, nutritional uptake by the plants and its potential as sustainable inputs. It aims to highlight the most significant results obtained for different pulse crops and intends to highlight the knowledge gap in biostimulants research in context of plant growth promotion. The future of widespread application of biostimulants depends on precision agriculture, market maturity and further research to harness their potential.