Objective The study aims to clarify the impacts of inoculation of rhizobia agent on peanut yield and economic benefits under the conditions of reduced application of chemical fertilizer, and promote the green and high-yielding production of peanut industry.

Method The high-yielding peanut variety 'Taihua 0605-2' was selected as the experimental material, and the field plot experiment was conducted by setting 7 treatments, conventional fertilization (N100%) + rhizobia agent seed dressing, 20% nitrogen reduction (N80%) + rhizobia agent seed dressing; 40% nitrogen reduction (N60%) + rhizobia agent seed dressing; 60% nitrogen reduction (N40%) + rhizobia agent seed dressing; 80% nitrogen reduction (N20%) + rhizobia agent seed dressing; 100% nitrogen reduction + rhizobia agent seed dressing; 100% nitrogen reduction + no rhizobia agent seed dressing. Conventional fertilization was selected as the control (CK) to explore the effects of rhizobia agent (seed coating) treatments on the number of peanut nodules, agronomic traits, yield and economic benefits under different nitrogen reduction fertilization methods.

Result The number of nodules in peanut under conventional fertilization (N100%) was the lowest (7.2 and 13.8) at seedling stage and flower-pegging stage, and gradually increased with the decrease of nitrogen application rate; in the pod-bearing stage, the number of nodules, plant height, lateral branch length, branch number, effective branch number, fresh matter mass accumulation increased under 40% nitrogen reduction (N60%) treatment compared with the control treatment, which increased by 2.3, 1.2, 0.8, 0.8 and 6.07 g, respectively. The analysis of economic benefits revealed that, under the conditions of this experiment, the highest yield of the treatment with 40% nitrogen reduction (nitrogen fertilizer application amount 67.5 kg/hm²) + rhizobia agent was 5 216.08 kg/hm², which was 5.30% higher than that of the control; and the net income increase was the most significant, with an output value of 36 512.55 yuan, which increased the yield by 2 526.45 yuan/ hm² compared with the control.

Conclusion The 40% nitrogen reduction + rhizobia agent seed dressing treatment could improve the agronomic traits of peanut such as plant height, lateral branch length, branch number and effective branch number, achieving the effects of stabilizing yield and increasing income.