BIO-FERTILIZERS in India and their future

ABSTRACT: The need to develop the biofertilizers in India is of great urgency because of the disastrous, harmful and diverse effect of chemical fertilizers which are available and affordable only via import and subsidies. The advantages of biofertilizers and shifts towards their adoption is because they are cost effective, ecofriendly, easy to apply, non-toxic,make the nutrients available in soil and atmosphere etc.In INDIA the benefits of biofertilizers are not so popular and are not known to farmers and producers and once they will become aware of it , surely, the adoption and application will be on large scale. The government of india is also trying to commercialize the biofertilizers as these are the products that will contribute to sustainable agriculture.The main motive and need to write this paper is to focus on success and failure of biofertilizers in india and its future and to give attention to research and development, awareness programmes and contribution to sustainable development and environment as well as to raise the interest of private and policy makers in this field.

KEY WORDS: Rhizobium, Biofertilizers(BF),Nitrogen, Bacteria, Phosphorous

 INTRODUCTION:

Biofertilizers are defined as biologically active products or microbial inoculants which add,conserve and mobilize the crop nutrients in soil. It can also be defined as a substance containing the living organismwhich when applied to soil or plant surfaces form colonizes around the rhizosphere and increase the availability of  plant nutrients that help in growth of plant. The term BF should not be used interchangeably with green manure,a supplemented with chemical fertilizers as these increases or add the nutrients but biofertilizers along with these function ,help in growth and other processes.BF increases crop productivity and soil fertility.Today many strains of nitrogen fixing,phosphate solubilizing or cellulolytic micro-organism are developed.These are far better than chemical fertilizer which gives good yield and higher gains but damage to ecosystem is also irreversible and irrepairable.These improve the soil fertility by atmosphere N fixing both by symbiosis and free living,solubilizing the insoluble phosphate and production of plant growth hormones.It has been reported that legumes viz.beans, legumes, soyabean, chickpea, pigeonpea can fix 50-500kg atm N/ha under  ideal conditions.

 PRODUCTION AND DEMAND:

There is need to create demand among farmers about use and benefits of biofertilzers as production is driven.Currently, the useof BF in the country the potential requirement exceeds the actual production.for widespread use there is need of research and development.There are many advantages of these,,Biofertilizer are renewable and organic,produce natural resistance and antibodies in plants.Retail shops donot sell BF due to less demand and shortage of storage facilties.

BODY:

Nitrogen fixing bacteria:

Rhizobium (Rhizobiaceae): on an average the nitrogen fixation on land amount to 135million metric tones/annum.In india 30million ha of land is under pulse cultivation and they fix50-100kg/hawith legumes only. Rhizobium is symbiotic bacteria that lives in association with roots of legumes.They infect their roots forming the nodules or form tomour like growth which acta as production factories of ammonia. The limitation of this methd of fixation is that  of specificity of rhizobium and only certain legumes are benefitted from it.the nitrogen fixation by legumes is reported to be 44 million metric tones/annum.the strain can increase the crop yield upto 10-35%since N is fixed at 40-200kg/hawhich is able to meet upto 80-905 N need of crop.residual N is beneficial for the next crop also grown in the same field.

AZOTOBACTER (Azotobacteriaceae)

This bacteria is also used for nitrogen fixation.  It also form colonies aroud the rhizospere and also penetrate in to root tissue.It is aerobic,free living, heterotrophic in nature and present in the alkaline and neutral soils.Azotobacter chrococcum is commonly occurring in arable land.It has been found in the rhizosphere of rice,maize,sugaecane,bajra crop.It is non symbiotic and fix upto 25lg N/ha under optium conditions and increase the yield upto 50%

In peach plant  both azotobacter and P fertilizer bacteria increases the alkaline phosphate activity .It is very beneficial in the sense ithat it produces certain substances that are helpful for the plant growth and antibodies also that also help in the same and seed germination. In case of sugarcane, growing acidic soils, Azoto bacterindium is helpful but large amount of organic carbon and molybdenumis needsed for stimulating nitrogenase activity.

HERBSPIRILLUM:

It is having the symbiotic association with roots of sugarcane and its function is to enhance the uptake of potassium, nitrate, phosphate, and also production of plant growth regulators which help in growth and other activities.

AZOSPIRILLUM (Spirillaceae):

It is Bacillius polymixa.it is the nitrogrn fixing bacteria which is beneficial to non-leguminous plants,,and is heterotrophic and associative.it can fix upto 20-40kg/ha by improving the leaf area index and thus growth yield and harvest index increases which increases the crop yield.

ACETOBACTER:

 This bacteria is adopted endophytically in sugarcane ecosystem and tolerant high sucrose concentration. It can fix 15kgN /ha/year and  also secrete the plant growth hormones like IAA-5 which enhances the germination and root development.It has been foundin wheat plants the  inoculants with Azotobacter+Rhizobium+VAM gave the highest increase in straw and grain yield along with rock phosphate as P fertilizers.

AZOLLA (Azollacea):

Azolla is fordual purposes it can be used for green manuring as well as biofertilizers.It is free floating symbiotic bacteria found on the water surfaces and low land fields.Now the fixing rate ,1kg of azolla can fix 40-50kg N /ha, 15-20kgP /ha .20-25kg K /ha in a month and increases yield of flooded paddy by 10-20%.

BLUE GREEN ALGAE (BGC) OR CYANOBACTERIA:

 These are the photosynthetic prokaryotic bacteria which are very beneficial in the presemce of sunlight in the submerged rice crop. They can fix N to a yune of 2-30kg/ha by converting the insoluble P into soluble form and increases the yield upto 10-15%.These arephtototrophic ,produces auxin,giberallin ,belong to 8 different families and can fix 20-30kgN /ha  .These are also known as paddy organism.it form the symbiotic  relation with the fungi,fern,etc.it improve the soil aeration,water holding capacity,add biomass and vitamins also.

PHOSPHATE SOLUBILIZING MICRO-ORGANISM AND MYCORRHIZAE:

Phosphorous content of Indian soil is low to medium . the plants easily take  the soluble bacteria and increases the yield to10-20%.several species of bacteria are available which can solubilise the phosphate compoundslike tricalciumphosphate,dicalcium phosphate. The bacteria increases the P fixation by  lowering down the mobility.and the soil bacteria belonging to genus pseudomonas,Bacillus and fungi.

MYCORRHIZAE: the symbiotic association between certain fungi and plant roots which mutually help each other.these are of two types ecto and endo mycirrhizae.

POTASSIUM SOLUBILIZING BACTERIA:

Bacteria like Frateuria aurantia are capable of converting the K into usable formwhichis beneficial to plant. It ia applied to soil along with other bio fertilizers

The above studied biofertilizers appy the major nutrients to soil but there is deficiency of micro nutrients like Zinc ,iron,copper.zinc being 50% deficient in Indian soil can be added in soil by Bacillus subitilis,Saccharomyces species.

BIOFERTILIZER REQUIREMENT:

Looking back into the history, the commercial history began with ‘Nitragen’ by Nobbe and Hither,by lab culturing of Rhizobium in 1895 followed by Azotobacter and BGC. In india ,N V Joshi studied the legume rhizobium symbiosis and first commercial production started in 1956.in ninth year plan the ministry of agriculture ,,take the initiation to popularize the biofertilizers,by setting up of  National Project on Development and Use of Biofertilizers. The benefits of biofertilizers like nutrients uptake,less residual and growth plant regulators.composting ,recycling of solid waste have increase the farmer interest towards the these as substituent of chemical fertilizers. Public sector fertilizer company IFFCO provided all strains of BF and is located at phulpur in UP.

PROCEDURE:

BF are made of two material 1)micro-organism 2)carrier material. At the manufacturing ,transportation,distribution stage there is need to remain caution due to high sensitivity towaeds temperature and other external factors.this involves the investment and research.the curing period  of biofertilizers manufacturing depends on growh rate of micro-organism.after this BF are packed in polythene bagsmaterial of 50-70mm thick and low density sheets. Each packet is provided with name of product,crop for which intended,date of manufacturinfg, expiry date etc and is duly tested ,maekes with ISI certified mark.

ELIGIBILTY CRITERIA:

ONLY 30% of Indian cultivable land with irrigation facilities is covered with fertilizers. CRITERIA: BF can fix N over range of environment condition, competition with other strains, multiply in broth and survival in carrier.

INDIAN MARKET FOR BIOFERTILIZERS:

In India there are 60 production units producing 10-115t/year the state government also provide sale relaxation upto 50% but manner of subsidization is unsystematic. The inadequate and inconsistent demand by farmers create the problem to producers e.g. the wheat growing north region do not show any interest but awareness and procurement can be increased via central  government, state government via district level officers ,then village level to farmers.

CONCLUSION: the new technique of application should be encouraged like pellet for direct soil application. The response of application usually depend on 1)soil type- like water holding capacity ,level of nitrates and P,salinity ,alkalinity 2)inadequate organic matter discouraged the non symbiotic bacteria,,so sufficient organic matter should be there.eg the phosphobactrin response is positive in soils of high organiv matter and low P availability.3)soil water deficient and high temperature affectthe nitrogen fixation.4) native microbial population opposes the inoculants.

The report of small cell to cell communication in form of microbial sensing and reponse mechanism have been studied.in iron deficient soil Pseudomonas colonizes the crop rootthat result in plant growth. farmers should br advised to mix BF to get benefits of synergistic effect on plant growth and crop yield but multistrains should be avoided.

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