Fig. 2: Encapsulation and feasibility of biofertilizers.
From: Rhizobacteria protective hydrogel to promote plant growth and adaption to acidic soil
a Schematic diagram of encapsulation for the preservation and delivery of PGPRs in biofertilizers. Some of the elements of this figure are by figdraw.com. Created in BioRender. QR, F. (2025) https://BioRender.com/i02e296. b Scanning electron microscope (SEM) micrograph depicting the attachment of C5 within the three-dimensional lattice structure of the encapsulant (Some C5 particles are highlighted within the red circle). Both micrographs were taken at 10,000x magnification, scale bar = 2 µm. c Representative TEM images of C5 and C5-loaded PMH (C5-PMH), scale bar = 1 µm. d OD600 measurements of C5 liquid cultures preserved in CMCS, SA, CMCS and SA mixtures with added CaCl2, and other encapsulation materials such as PVP and MC showed significant differences between 2 and 6 h. e The bacterial activity of C5 encapsulated with the different encapsulants mentioned above was determined at weeks 1, 3 and 5. “*” indicates comparison with the C5-PMH (3:7) group in each group. f Representative images of GFP-C5 release by biofertilizers, scale bar = 10 µm. Each experiment was repeated three times independently with similar results in (b, c–f). The error bars in (d, e) are the SD of 3 biological replicates (n = 3). Statistically significant differences between the means were analyzed with two-tailed Student’s t-test (*p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001; ****p < 0.0001) in (d, e).
