###### Abstract  
In the Yaqui Valley, Mexico, the current and estimated annual growth rate of durum wheat (_Triticum turgidum_ L. subsp. _durum_) yield is insufficient to satisfy the food demand that the world will be facing by 2050. Furthermore, besides the high doses of fertilizers applied to wheat in this region, nitrogen-use efficiency (NUE) remains low (<34.4%). A sustainable strategy to reduce the use of fertilizers and to increase crop yield and quality is the use of native plant growth-promoting bacteria as microbial inoculants. This study was performed under field conditions during one agricultural season in the Yaqui Valley, Mexico. It aimed to quantify the impact of the inoculation of a native bacterial consortium (BC) composed of _Bacillus cabrialesii_ subsp. _cabrialesii_ TES\({}^{3T}\), _Pristia megaterium_ TRQS, and _Bacillus paralicheinformis_ TRQ65 on grain yield, grain quality, and NUE (measured through \({}^{15}\)N-isotopic techniques) at different stages of development of durum wheat variety CIRNO C2008 under three doses of urea (0, 120, and 240 kg N ha\({}^{-1}\)) fractionated at 30%, 60%, and 10%. Results showed that yield, quality, and NUE were highly affected by the N doses, while the inoculation of the BC had a lower impact on these parameters. Nevertheless, the inoculation of the BC on wheat had positive effects at the early stages of growth, on plant height (+1.6 cm), root depth (+11.9 cm), and spikes per square meter (+25 spikes m\({}^{-2}\)). Moreover, the addition of the BC improved N acquisition by the plants, at different crop growth stages, compared to uninoculated treatments. Finally, our results indicated that reducing the N dose from 240 kg of N ha\({}^{-1}\) to 120 kg of N ha\({}^{-1}\) improved the NUE (27.5% vs. 44.3%, respectively) of the crop. Hence, results of this preliminary study showed that the incorporation of bacterial inoculants into the wheat crop requires a simultaneous adequate N management, in order to obtain the desired positive effect on wheat productivity. s 2025 15 1429 +
Footnote †: journal: Applied sciences  
in ranges from 1.37 to 1.43. Finally, they quantified the strains' capacity to produce indoles, with amounts that ranged from 8.21 to 39.29 \(\mathrm{\SIUnitSymbolMicro\text{g}}\)/mL. Moreover, it was demonstrated that the co-inoculation of TRQ8 and TRQ65 in wheat increased their ability to promote growth in the early stages of development, without antagonistic effects among them. Thus, their co-inoculation showed significant (\(p<0.05\)) increments on aerial length = 5.5%, root length = 10.5%, dry weight of the aerial part = 60.7%, root dry weight = 82.3%, and biovolume = 17.6% [17]. In addition, [PERSON] et al. (2022) [18], conducted a greenhouse assay, where wheat seedlings were inoculated with alginate microbeads containing these strains, this treatment improved biometric parameters (vs. the non-inoculated treatment), such as root dry weight (13-77%), root length (8-19%), stem dry weight (31%), stem length (8-12%), and chlorophyll content (7%). Field assays over four wheat crop cycles in the Yaqui Valley demonstrated that inoculating the consortium with the strains TRQ8, TRQ65, and TE3T, and combined with different fertilization doses, increased grain yield by 0.5 to 2.0 ton ha\({}^{-1}\) compared to non-inoculated treatments, while maintaining grain quality required by the industry [5; 19]. In those studies, N fertilization fractionated into three equal parts (33.3%). However, current recommendations for wheat production in the Yaqui Valley are to apply N fertilization in splits: 30%, 60%, and 10%; 30%, 50%, and 20%, or 30, 70%, and 0% (in sowing, stem elongation, and booting), among others [20], and it is crucial to assess whether these N management recommendations are compatible with the use of native microorganisms as bacterial inoculants. Thus, this one-crop season study aimed to quantify the impact of inoculating a bacterial consortium (BC) (_Bacillus cabrialesii_ subsp.