Nursery practice on seed germination and seedling growth of Dalbergia sissoo using beneficial microbial inoculants

Abstract

Nursery practice using microbial inoculants was performed to find out the efficacy of the inoculants on seed germination and seedling growth of sissoo (Dalbergia sissoo Roxb.). Microbial inoculants or effective microorganisms (EM) are a mixture of many different beneficial microorganisms in a solution. The seedlings were grown in a mixture of sandy soil and cowdung (3:1) kept in polybags with pouring EM solution at different concentrations (0.1%, 0.5%, 1%, 2%, 5% and 10%) before and after a week of sowing the seeds. Seed germination rate and growth parameters of seedlings were measured, such as, shoot and root length, vigor index, fresh and dry weight of shoot and root and total biomass increment. The nodulation status influenced by EM was also observed along with the measurement of pigment contents in leaves. The highest germination rate (69%) was observed in 2% EM treatment, followed by 67% and 65% in 1% and 5% EM. The highest shoot length (33.2 cm) was in 2% EM, whereas highest root length (26.3 cm) was in 1% EM.Both fresh and dry weights from shoot and root, were maximum (4.16 g and 1.57 g; 2.12 g and 0.83 g respectively) in 2% EM and were significantly (p ≤ 0.05) different from control. Vigor index was highest (4071) in 2% EM, which was significantly (p ≤ 0.05) different from control.Total dry weight increment was highest in 2% EM treatment, followed by 1% and 5% concentrations of EM. Nodulation number was higher at very low (0.1%) concentration of EM solution but it normally decreased with the increase of EM concentrations. The contents of chlorophyll a, chlorophyll b and carotenoid were highest (60.11, 17.05 and 42.48 mg⋅L -1 respectively) in 2% EM treatment and lowest (39.35, 13.55 and 27.29 mg⋅L -1 respectively) in control treatment. Therefore, low concentration of The online version is available at Responsible editor: Zhu Hong EM (up to 2%) can be used for getting maximum seed germination rate and seedling development of Dalbergia sissoo Roxb.

Microbial inoculant influences the germination and growth of Albizia lebbeck seedlings in the nursery

“…But the influence of MI on forest crops has not been studied widely (Khan et al, 2006(Khan et al, , 2011. From this study, it has been observed that soil amended with different concentrations of MI can also improve the seedling growth of forest crops.…”

“…From this study, it has been observed that soil amended with different concentrations of MI can also improve the seedling growth of forest crops. Mridha (2005), Khan (2012) and Khan et al (2011Khan et al ( , 2014) also reported enhanced seed germination rate and seedling growth with the application of low concentrations of MI. Specially, applying 2% of MI enhanced seed germination and seedling growth at an optimum level which might be due to the presence of microbial population in such a density within this concentration which was cable to produce optimum level of growth enhancing hormones and other chemicals.…”

“…The total dry biomass increased gradually with the increase of the concentrations of MI up to 2% while decreased gradually from its maximum point as the concentrations of MI increased above 2%. Increased biomass production might be due to the better root development in the treated seedlings (Khan et al, 2011(Khan et al, , 2014. Such promotion might also be due to the biological active substances in the inoculant (Lim et al, 1999), such as indole acetic acid (IAA) and gibberellins produced by Lactobacillus spp., Rhodopseudomonas spp., Aspergillus spp.…”

“…The nodule dry weight increment rate was positive for 0.1%, 0.5%, and 1% of MI while negative for all other treatments, with respect to control ( Table 3). The number of nodule in soybean root was also not changed significantly due to application of low concentrations of MI (Thach et al, 1999) while decreased in higher concentrations in Dalbergia sissoo and Acacia auriculiformis (Khan et al, 2011(Khan et al, , 2014. The higher concentrations of MI solution in the substratum may affect the growth of plants because of toxic effect of secretion of toxic metabolites.…”

“…Effects of MI on the content of leaf pigments (Chlorophyll-a, chlorophyll-b, and carotenoid) were also determined ( (2000), Wang et al (2000), Mridha et al (2002), Khan et al (2006Khan et al ( , 2011 and Khan (2012) that low concentrations of MI with organic fertilizer promote root growth and enhance photosynthetic efficiency and yield of seedling.…”