Authors : Savita D. Mali and Y. C. Attar
Page Nos : 210-212
Description :
Potassium (K) is an essential macronutrient that plays an important role in the growth and development of plants. In plants potassium deficiency results into poor development of roots, decrease in the growth rate, production of small seeds and lower crop yields. In soil potassium exists in three forms as unavailable, slowly available or fixed and readily available or exchangeable. The soluble form of potassium is present in very low concentration in soil and it is only utilised by the plants. Many soil microorganisms have ability to solubilise unavailable and fixed form of potassium and use of such microorganisms as bioinoculant is economical as well as ecofriendly over chemical fertilizers. In this study twenty bacterial strains having ability of potassium solubilisation were isolated from the soil samples collected from different areas of Maharashtra. Aleksandrov’s agar medium containing potassium aluminoisilicate as insoluble potassium source was used for study. All strains were further screened for their potassium solubilisation ability so as to identify the potent strain.
Keywords: Potassium solubilisation; Insoluble potassium; Bioinoculant.
