Jha, M. N.Pathak, Devashish2020-11-182020-11-182020M/MICRO/499/2018-19https://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/5810155218Chemical fertilizer has to be supplemented with bio-fertilizer to prevent the deterioration of the soil quality, surface water, ground water pollution, reduction of biodiversity, imbalance microbial load and disturbance in the ecosystem functioning. Thus there is an immediate need to amalgate chemical fertilizer with bio-fertilizer to sustain the agricultural productivity. A major demand for bio-fertilizer industry is to supply of such microbial strain either in mono and consortia mode having wider agro-ecological application. Accordingly, this study was carried out with isolation of Rhizobium and rhizobacteria from lentil plant root and rhizosphere of Mokama Tal land (pulse basket of Bihar), having negligible chemical fertilizer application to formulate a microbial consortia for various plant promoting and nutrient solubilisation characteristics. Among 28 isolates, 12, 15, 26 and 9 isolates were tested positive for acetylene reduction assay, ammonia production, IAA production and HCN production respectively. Also 20, 21, 17 and 9 isolates were positive for phosphorus solubilisation, siderophore production, Zn solubilisation and potassium solubilisation respectively. The best isolates were screened for carbon source utilization and found DPR2, DPB4, DPP4 and DPA1 had diverse nature for C-source utilization, thus were selected for consortia preparation. Morphological and molecular identification of selected isolates DPR2, DPB4, DPP4 and DPA1 were done, and identified as Rhizobium leguminosarum bv. viciae, Bacillus teliquencis, Pseudomonas fluorescens and Azotobacter salinestris respectively. A pot experiment was carried out to evaluate the prepared consortia with respect to the chemical fertilizer in lentil plant in different soil conditions like Tal soil of Mokama, Diara soil of Begusarai, Chaur soil of Darbhanga and calcareous soil of Pusa. In plant growth and yield attributing characteristics, result of consortia for root length, 100 seed weight and yield per pot were higher in Tal soil among three other soil but for no. of branches, days of germination, no. of pods/plant and no. of seeds per pod were found insignificantly differ for Tal soil, Chaur soil and Diara soil followed by calcareous soil. In shoot length and no. of nodules/plant result of consortia were similar for Tal and Chaur soil followed by Diara soil and least for calcareous soil. In nutrient acquisition, result of consortia for nitrogen and Fe content in seed were highest in Tal soil followed by Chaur soil. In phosphorus and Zn content in seed, result of consortia was higher in Tal soil followed by Diara soil. Whereas for potassium content in seed, result of consortia were similar for Tal and Chaur soil followed by Diara soil. Among all 13 treatments, best result was found in T13 consortia (Rhizobium + Bacillus + Pseudomonas + Azotobacter + 50% RDF) compared with the 100%RDF and mono mode application of Rhizobium + 50% RDF, across the soil type. Thus, the consortia of Rhizobium + Bacillus + Pseudomonas + Azotobacter can be used as a universal strain under different soil system of Bihar for lentil crop production.EnglishThesis