Biofertilizers

Biofertilizers are preparations containing living or latent cells of efficient microbial strains that help crop plants take up nutrients through their interactions in the root zone (rhizosphere) when applied to seed or soil. They are also called microbial cultures, bioinoculants or bacterial inoculants. Their main functions are fixing atmospheric nitrogen, solubilising insoluble soil phosphate, and decomposing cellulose — all of which improve soil fertility, plant growth, and the number and activity of beneficial soil microorganisms. Because they work with natural biological processes rather than synthetic chemistry, biofertilizers are eco-friendly and, over time, more cost-effective than chemical fertilizers. As Figure 9.3 shows, biofertilizers are classified by function into nitrogen-fixing types (free-living, symbiotic and associative-symbiotic), phosphate-solubilizing types (bacterial and fungal), phosphate-mobilizing types (myc …