Assessment of Rhizobium Strains and their Impact on Urdbean Productivity

Abstract

The study sought to assess the impact of inoculation by several Rhizobium strains on field-grown urdbean (Blackgram). Rhizobia, which promotes the growth of legume plants. The bacteria that live in the soil and generate the root nodules where symbiotic biological nitrogen fixing occurs are called rhizobia. Four AICRP centers viz., Kalaburagi (GUR5 & GUR8), Akola (WUR 12-1), Vamban (VUC), and Pantnagar (A-3, P-5 & PUR 34), provided a total of seven Rhizobium isolates, which were employed in the experiment together with the best Rhizobium BMBS 47. Urdbean seeds were treated with the Rhizobium isolates and sown. Observations were recorded at 45th DAS, to assess their effect on plant growth parameters viz., number of nodules/plants, root length, shoot length, nodule dry weight, and yield parameters were recorded during harvest. Among the Rhizobium isolates, VUC (Vamban) recorded a greater number of nodules/plant (30 / plant) and nodule dry weight (0.038 g/plant), which is significantly higher than other isolates. The same isolate recorded the highest root length (13.50 cm). The treatment T9 recorded the maximum shoot length of 27.26 cm. Crop was harvested at 65 DAS and yield parameters viz., number of pods per plant, plant dry weight and yield were recorded and tabulated (Table 2). Among the different Rhizobium isolates, VUC (Vamban) performed better and recorded the higher values for yield parameters. The highest yield of 1162 kg/ha was recorded by T5 which received VUC through seed treatment followed by T6 treatment A-3 (Pantnagar) which recorded 1077.6 kg/ha of seed yield.