P.H. PATEL, G.B. PATEL AND S.A. BHATT
Abstract
The free living bacteria having the ability to fix molecular nitrogen can be distinguished into aerobic, facultative aerobic and anaerobic organisms. A total of 8 selected strains of free living nitrogen fixing bacteria were isolated from different rhizospheric soils of North Gujarat. All the isolates show Acetylene reduction and few isolates produce IAA. In the present study active culture of N2-fixing bacteria were applied on Cotton plant in pot. Statistical data of plant growth promotion shows that applications of these cultures significantly increased plant height, number of leaves, and number of branches per plant, high chlorophyll and protein content, when compared with control. The results of this study support that the Am5 strain is very much effective for plant growth promotion and it is closely match with uncultured bacterial sp. Further investigation may prove this strain as a novel species.