Potassium-Solubilizing Bacteria and Their Application in Agriculture

Abstract

Potassium (K) is one of the major macronutrients which play an important role in plant growth and development. Total soil potassium reserves are generally large; however, major portion of it exists in insoluble K minerals and very little potassium becomes available to plants. There are certain microorganisms which use a number of biological processes to make potassium available from unavailable forms. These potassiumsolubilizing bacteria (KSB) can be used as a promising approach to increase K availability in soils, thus playing an important role for crop establishment under K-limited soils. Owing to naturally available source of potassium in soil and high price of synthetic potassium fertilizers, the importance of KSB is increasing day by day. The use of chemical fertilizers can be decreased by using KSB in agriculture that can lead to sustainable agriculture. A number of workers have demonstrated the role of KSB in crop improvement. The present review highlights the importance of KSB for enhancing crop production. The mechanisms used by KSB for K solubilization have been discussed. The work of various scientists regarding plant growth promotion through KSB has been reviewed in detail, and present constraints and future scope of this technology have also been discussed.

Soil pH Is the Primary Factor Correlating With Soil Microbiome in Karst Rocky Desertification Regions in the Wushan County, Chongqing, China

“…Other macronutrients, TP and TK, were significant lower in SKRD than those of in NKRD areas, indicating nutrient limiting condition in SKRD soils. Interestingly, AK was significantly higher in degraded soils, which might due to the predominance and contributions of KSB, such as Pseudomonas, Bacillus , and Burkholderia (Ahmad et al, 2016 ). Overall, we find that soil quality in SKRD region significantly decreased compared to that of in NKRD area.…”

Potassium solubilizing bacteria (KSB):: Mechanisms, promotion of plant growth, and future prospects ­ A review

“…pathogens), or neutral for the plant, and sometimes the impact of a bacterium may vary as the soil conditions change (Cheng et al, 2010). The bacteria that provide some (Ahmad et al, 2016;Bakhshandeh et al, 2017;Gundala et al, 2013;Meena et al, 2014). There are strong evidences that soil bacteria are capable of transforming soil K to the forms available to plant effectively (Meena et al, 2015a;Meena et al, 2014;Meena et al, 2016).…”

“…It has been reported that inoculation with KSB produced beneficial effect on growth of different plants (Ahmad et al, 2016;Bakhshandeh et al, 2017;Xiao et al, 2017).…”

Possible Roles of Rhizospheric and Endophytic Microbes to Provide a Safe and Affordable Means of Crop Biofortification

“…By inoculating these microbial strains into the soil where the crops are grown, not only will the bioavailability of Zn be improved, but we can also promote a sustainable agro-ecosystem. Through the siderophore and exopolysaccharide production, nutrient solubilization, the production of organic acids and phytohormones, the mobilization of nutrients, and the fixation of atmospheric nitrogen carried out by these microbes, the availability of Zn can be raised, thus helping plants to uptake more Zn from the soil [87]. Significant increases in Zn contents in maize grains were observed when the crop was grown in soil inoculated with the bacterial strains from the genera Azotobacter, Pseudomonas, Bacillus, and Azospirillum [88,89] [SaCS20]), the bioavailability of Zn in the soil was significantly enhanced, resulting in higher levels of Zn in the grains and the yields were also improved [29,90,91].…”