ABSTRACT
The initiative taken in the late 1960s and early 1970s to make the country self-reliant to meet the food requirement resulted in a shift from traditional agriculture to intensive farming involving stepped up use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides (Goyal, 2001; Tandon, 1992). The steps that brought the green revolution in the country in the long run have turned
CONTENTS
5.1 Introduction ................................................................................................ 169 5.2 Microbial Cultures as Biofertilizers ........................................................ 170
5.2.1 Nitrogen-Fixing Microorganisms ................................................ 170 5.2.1.1Rhizobium ........................................................................ 172 5.2.1.2Azotobacter ...................................................................... 173 5.2.1.3 Azospirillum .................................................................... 173 5.2.1.4 Blue-Green Algae ............................................................ 173
5.2.2 Phosphate-Solubilizing Bacteria .................................................. 174 5.2.3Vesicular Arbuscular Mycorrhiza ............................................... 175 5.2.4Plant Growth-Promoting Rhizobacteria .................................... 176 5.2.5 Microbial Consortia ....................................................................... 176
5.3 Bene„ts of Biofertilizers ............................................................................ 177 5.4 Production Technology ............................................................................. 178
5.4.1Raw Material and Equipment ...................................................... 179 5.4.2Selection of Microbial Strain ........................................................ 179 5.4.3 Preparation of Mother Culture .................................................... 179 5.4.4 Mass Multiplication ....................................................................... 181 5.4.5 Mixing of Culture with Carrier Material and Packing ............ 181 5.4.6Quality Control .............................................................................. 182
5.5Global Status ............................................................................................... 183 5.6 Constraints .................................................................................................. 185 5.7 Summary and Future Prospects .............................................................. 186 References ............................................................................................................. 187
the soils barren. The runoff from „elds carrying leftover fertilizers and pesticides contaminated the ground water, which gets reŠected in our daily diet. These detrimental effects of current agricultural practices can be appreciably reduced by using biofertilizers in combination with organic manure and chemicalfertilizers and induce long-term sustainability in agricultural production (Tandon, 1992).
