“…putida produced nitrite from nitrate in 3-4 days. Reduction of nitrate by the other strains could be found only when the strains were passaged through a synthetic medium containing nitrate as the only source of nitrogen (Diminick, 1947). I n every case nitrite was found when a modification of the rapid method of Brough (1950) modified by Clarke & Cowan (1953) was applied.…”