S. Pati, A. Patwari, S. Paul, A. Kumar, R. Kumar, A. Roy Barman, S.K. Ray and S. Dutta
Abstract
The intensive agricultural system results into considerable environmental damage and its inevitable effects on various environmental and ecological factors. Known for their role in the natural disease-suppressiveness of particular soil, Fluorescent pseudomonads are a genus of root-associated bacteria that may colonise the roots of agricultural plants and create antifungal metabolites, making them a viable alternative to the use of chemical fungicides. The successful application of Fluorescent pseudomonads as bioinoculants depends to a great extent on their capability to establish roots and to contend with indigenous microbiome in the rhizosphere. Because of various limitations, variations in the bio control agents are bound to occur in different agro-climatic regions, so it is advisable to choose native bio control agents. In the present investigation, a comprehensive effort was undertaken to check the growth of Pseudomonas aeruginosa (GP-8), which was found to be much lesser in aqueous extracts of cow dung, vermicompost and groundnut cake as compared to the growth of GP-8 (Pseudomonas aeruginosa) in nutrient broth media. The enrichment of Nitrogen and other supplementary nutrients may be required for the development of low cost indigenous media from cheaply available substrates for commercial mass production of Pseudomonas aeruginosa (GP-8) and also a field level screening trial was undertaken with efficient native Fluorescent pseudomonads solely or in consortia for improvement of plant health and management of soil borne pathogens as well as to develop a culture media with cheap and readily available substrate sources for mass production of Fluorescent pseudomonads strains. In the present study, it was found that shoot length and root length of native Fluorescent pseudomonads inoculated cowpea plants were significantly increased as compared with those of the control plants both at 30 and 60 days after sowing.