Assessing the effectiveness of indigenous phosphate-solubilizing bacteria in mitigating phosphorus fixation in acid soils.

Unlabelled: Phosphorus (P) is the key to several structural molecules and catalyzes numerous biochemical reactions in plant body besides its involvement in energy transfer. Any deficit in P availability is likely to result in reduced RNA and protein content, inhibiting crop growth and development. Thus, availability of soil P is extremely crucial for plant growth especially in acid soils of India, where most of the fraction is bound to solid phase rendering their availability.

Assessing the Capability of Chemical Ameliorants to Reduce the Bioavailability of Heavy Metals in Bulk Fly Ash Contaminated Soil.

In-situ rehabilitation of fly ash at dumping sites has rarely been addressed for crop production due to growth-related constraints, largely of heavy metal (HM) contamination in soils and crops. Current communication deals with a novel approach to identify a suitable management option for rejuvenating the contaminated soils. In this background, a 60-days incubation experiment was conducted with different fly ash-soil mixtures (50 + 50%, A1; 75 + 25%, A2; 100 + 0%, A3) along with four ameliorants, namely, lime (T1), sodium sulphide (T2), di-ammonium phosphate (T3), and humic acid (T4) at 30 ± 2 °C to assess the ability of different fly ash-soil-ameliorant mixtures in reducing bio-availability of HMs.

Arsenic accumulating bacteria isolated from soil for possible application in bioremediation.

Twenty six arsenic (As) resistant bacterial strains were isolated from As contaminated paddy soil of West Bengal, India. Among them, 10 isolates exhibited higher As resistance capacity and could grow in concentration of 12000 mg I-1 of arsenate (AsV) and 2000 mg l-1 of arsenite (Aslll) in growing medium. Maximum growth was observed at 1000 mg I-1and 100 mg I-1 in case of AsV and Asll respectively.