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Monitoring the biofertilizing potential and establishment of inoculated cyanobacteria in soil using physiological and molecular markers

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Abstract

This paper aims to develop methods for quantifying their establishment; using physiological activity (chlorophyll as a growth index and nitrogen-fixing potential as a measure of their biofertilizing capacity), along with evaluation based on DNA fingerprints generated using repeat sequences/palindromes. Time course studies were undertaken in liquid and soil microcosm experiments inoculated with a set of four rhizosphere cyanobacterial strains (BF1 Anabaena sp., BF2 Nostoc sp., BF3 Nostoc sp., BF4 Anabaena sp.). Observations revealed the synergistic effect of three-membered combinations (especially the i.e. BF1 + 2 + 3, 1 + 2 + 4, 1 + 3 + 4) in terms of enhancing chlorophyll and acetylene reducing activity. PCR-based amplification profiles (using short tandemly repetitive repeat (STRR) 1A, STRRmod, and HIPAT sequences) proved discriminative in monitoring the presence of the inoculated cyanobacteria in soil microcosm. Future work is in progress to assess the utility of the selected markers/primers in pot experiments, followed by field-level experiments with crop.

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Acknowledgments

The study was undertaken as a part of the All India Network Project on Biofertilizers-Soil Biodiversity funded by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), New Delhi. We thank the Institute (IARI, New Delhi) and the Division of Microbiology and CCUBGA, for providing necessary facilities involved in undertaking this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Microbiology, Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi, 110012, India

    Radha Prasanna, Ranvijay Narayan Singh, Monica Joshi, Komal Madhan & Lata Nain

  2. Division of Post Harvest Technology, Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi, 110012, India

    Ram Krishna Pal

Authors
  1. Radha Prasanna
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  2. Ranvijay Narayan Singh
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  3. Monica Joshi
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  4. Komal Madhan
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  5. Ram Krishna Pal
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  6. Lata Nain
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Radha Prasanna.

Electronic supplementary material

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Supplementary Table 1

Details of geographical locations and pH of sampling sites in India (DOC 29 kb)

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Prasanna, R., Singh, R.N., Joshi, M. et al. Monitoring the biofertilizing potential and establishment of inoculated cyanobacteria in soil using physiological and molecular markers. J Appl Phycol 23, 301–308 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10811-010-9571-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10811-010-9571-1

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