EVALUATION OF BIOFERTILIZER POTENTIAL OF BACILLUS POLYMYXA ISOLATED FROM RHIZOSPHERE OF BRINJAL UNDER FIELD CONDITIONS

The present study was designed with the main purpose to evaluate the potential of Bacillus polymyxa isolated from Brinjal (Solanum melongena L.) as a biofertilizer. The Brinjal (Solanum melongena L.) cultivar Arka keshav were used in this study. The isolated bacteria from rhizosphere of brinjal identified as Bacillus polyrnyxa was used as the inoculant. The seeds of brinjal were obtained from Division of Vegetable crops. IIHR, Hesaraghatta. Bangalore. Results revealed that the plants, which received half dose of nitrogen and phosphorus showed the maximum percent increase in the shoot, dry weight (59%) over the uninoculated controls, which received the same level of fertilizers. The maximum percent increase in shoot fresh weight (51%) and photosynthetic efficiency (88%) was observed at the half level of nitrogen and phosphorus in plants treated with Bacillus polymyxa as compared with uninoculated controls at the same fertilizer level. The inoculated plants that received half of nitrogen and half dose of phosphorus showed an increase of 56% of copper, 56% of calcium and 58% of manganese content in the plants as compared with the uninoculated controls at the same fertilizer levels. The phosphorus content of the treated plots in the rhizosphere soil during the period of the experiment in which brinjal cv. Arka Keshav was cultivated showed significantly higher values of available phosphorus content than the control plots. In conclusion, the bacterial isolate from brinjal (Solanum melongena L.) plants identified as Bacillus polymyxa when used as inoculum in field trials showed significant improvement and beneficial in growth parameters of treated plants over the uninoculated controls at alllevels of fertilizer application.