## 3 Results and Discussion
[38] studied the influence of nitrogen in soil microbial population of a _Coffea canepora_ Pierre cultivation and found that the application of 90 and 135 kg N ha\({}^{-1}\) resulted in the highest values of bacteria populations (116-139 \(\times\) 10\({}^{7}\) CFUg\({}^{-1}\)); 150 kg N ha  
Figure 2: The growth response of the microbial consortium to varying rates of nitrogen and carbon, as detailed in Table 2: (**A**) Quantification of colony forming units (CFU) per milliliter, including both cells and spores. (**B**) Quantification of colony-forming Units (CFU) per milliliter of spores following a 15 min thermal shock treatment. reduced the populations to their initial state (107 \(\times\) 10\({}^{7}\) CFUg\({}^{-1}\)); and the highest rate of fertilization, 200 kg N ha\({}^{-1}\), depleted the populations of bacteria to 50 \(\times\) 10\({}^{7}\) CFUg\({}^{-1}\). In comparison with [PERSON] et al. [30], who evaluated _Herbsapirillum_ sp. AP21 and _Azospirillum brasilense_ D7 (without inoculation, individual, and in combination) with 50% and 75% of urea, vs. controls without PGPB with 0% and 100% of urea on a Perennial ryegrass (_Lolium perenue_ L.) var. One 50 and red clover (_Trifolium pratense_ L.) intercropping system, they reported that the inoculation of the PGPB decreased the rhizosphere bacterial diversity, but nitrogen doses did not cause significant changes in the bacterial community. Regarding the quality of the grain, the traits of hectoliter weight and protein percentage (Table 4) were positively (\(p<0.05\)) impacted by the increased doses of applied nitrogen dose, more than the inoculation of the studied bacterial strains (Table 4). Similarly, [PERSON] et al. [39] reported that the protein content in grains of different Argentine varieties of bread wheat was highly dependent on the level of N.  
Concerning the trait of 1000-grain weight, no significant difference was observed among treatments due to the inoculation of the BC (Table 4), and it has been stated that increases in spikes per m\({}^{2}\), 1000-grain weight, and number of grains per spike are necessary to achieve an increment of wheat yield [40]. This indicator is consistent with the yields obtained (except for the lowest two values when 0 kg N ha\({}^{-1}\) was applied) (Supplementary Tables S1 and S2). The range between all results of Minolta b\({}^{\star}\) values of yellowness was 14.20 to 14.73 (Supplementary Table S3), without a significant effect due to the inoculation of the BC, and a tendency of higher values with increasing N rates (Table 4). These results were coherent, as this quality trait is reported to be more stable in different conditions and mainly genetically determined [41]. All values of yellowness in this study met the quality requirements for this wheat variety [42]. However, a low protein percentage in general (among all treatments) was observed, which is the main trait considered to define an appropriate wheat grain quality for industrial purposes in the region. This effect could be due to low N availability in advanced stages of growth (e.g., heading or grain filling) and N was not available for a beneficial impact on quality (protein), considering that the last fractionation of N was 10% in the grain filling stage. It is important to highlight that wheat gluten is composed of proteins divided into gliadins (responsible for dough extensibility and viscosity) and glutenins (main determinants of dough strength), which must be in balance to achieve desirable quality characteristics. Therefore, it has been reported that the \(\gamma\)-gliadin gene family is largely regulated by the N supply in the course of wheat grain development [43,44]. Otherwise, [PERSON] et al. (2016) [39] reported that the relationship between dough extensibility and recovery efficiency of N in grain was more related to the partition of N to harvestable destinations than to the absorption of N from the soil.