Inoculation Of Soil With Nitrogen Fixing Bacteria

This 1976 volume provides information, presented at an international symposium in Edinburgh, on the free-living nitrogen-fixing bacteria and blue-green algae. In addition to information on the distribution of the nitrogenase enzyme within these groups, their role in the soil and in aquatic systems is considered, as are the methods of measuring nitrogen fixation.

Biological nitrogen-fixation. Rhizoia-legume symbiosis. Ble-green alge. Free-livin nitrogen-fixing bacteria. Azolla. Nodulated non-leguminous plants. Some costs of biofertilizers.

Sustainability has a major part to play in the global challenge of continued development of regions, countries, and continents all around the World and biological nitrogen fixation has a key role in this process. This volume begins with chapters specifically addressing crops of major global importance, such as soybeans, rice, and sugar cane. It continues with a second important focus, agroforestry, and describes the use and promise of both legume trees with their rhizobial symbionts and other nitrogen-fixing trees with their actinorhizal colonization. An over-arching theme of all chapters is the interaction of the plants and trees with microbes and this theme allows other aspects of soil microbiology, such as interactions with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and the impact of soil-stress factors on biological nitrogen fixation, to be addressed. Furthermore, a link to basic science occurs through the inclusion of chapters describing the biogeochemically important nitrogen cycle and its key relationships among nitrogen fixation, nitrification, and denitrification. The volume then provides an up-to-date view of the production of microbial inocula, especially those for legume crops.

Nitrogen fixation by leguminous plants is especially important when farmers are trying to minimise fertilizer use for cost or environmental reasons. This second edition of the highly successful book, first published in 1991, contains thoroughly updated and revised material on the theory and practice of nitrogen fixation in tropical cropping systems.