Increasing cost of the fertilizers with lesser nutrient use efficiency necessitates alternate means to fertilizers. Soil is a storehouse of nutrients and energy for living organisms under the soil-plant-microorganism system. These rhizospheric microorganisms are crucial components of sustainable agricultural ecosystems. They are involved in sustaining soil as well as crop productivity under organic matter decomposition, nutrient transformations, and biological nutrient cycling. The rhizospheric microorganisms regulate the nutrient flow in the soil through assimilating nutrients, producing biomass, and converting organically bound forms of nutrients. Soil microorganisms play a significant role in a number of chemical transformations of soils and thus, influence the availability of macro-and micronutrients. Use of plant growth-promoting microorganisms (PGPMs) helps in increasing yields in addition to conventional plant protection. The most important PGPMs are Azospirillum,

The release of K from waste mica (muscovite and biotite) was tested with 4 K-solubilizing isolates collected from maize rhizosphere, for 7, 14 and 21 days of incubation at 28 ± 2°C. K-solubilization by different bacterial isolates showed significant change on muscovite and biotite powder supplemented plates and the amount of K released varied from 1.28 -46.75 µg/ml. The soluble K contents in all isolated treatments were significantly higher than control. Herein, isolate KSB 2 had higher K-solubilization ability when compared with other isolates (KSB 1 , KSB 3 and KSB 4 ) in vitro.

No abstract

No abstract