Competitiveness and Symbiotic Effectiveness of Rhizobial Inoculants on Field Pea (Pisum Sativum) Under Greenhouse and Field Conditions
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Date
2017-06
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Addis Ababa Universty
Abstract
Field pea (Pisum sativum) is widely cultivated in Ethiopia as a source of protein and integrated in crop
rotation to improve soil fertility for it fixes nitrogen with rhizobia. However, effectiveness in nitrogen fixation
depends upon the selection of symbiotically effective rhizobia to enhance production. Thus, a study was
conducted to evaluate the performance of three inoculants; FBR 11, FBR 15, FBR 23 on growth, nitrogen
fixation and yield under greenhouse and field conditions in relation to a commercial rhizobial strain 1018 at
Kulumsa Agricultural Research Center during 2015/16 growing seasons. Standard physiological and
biochemical tests were conducted to look into the nodule occupancy (competitiveness) of the three inoculants
against the local rhizobia in the soil. The study showed that Isolate FBR 15 was the most effective inoculants
with nodule occupancy of 75%, and were highly effective under greenhouse conditions, whereas the other
inoculants were effective and occupied 50-60% of the nodules of the inoculated plants. Inoculation of field pea
showed a highly significant (p≤0.001, p≤0.01 and p≤0.05) effect on all parameters compared to the uninoculated
plants in the field trial. Accordingly, plants inoculated with isolate FBR15 and Strain 1018 showed
a significant increase in nodule number (84-112NN/plant (10 times), NDW (77-94mg/plant) (12 times) against
the un-inoculated control plants, and they also showed a 20-25% increase in both parameters in comparison
to FBR11 and FBR23 inoculated plants. The treatments with FBR15 and the reference strain 1018 also
showed significant difference in grain total nitrogen and N uptake and straw N uptake, and seed protein with
50-100% and 12-20% difference from the un-inoculated control plants and other Rhizobium treatments,
respectively. Positive correlations were observed with respect to the number of nodule and shoot dry weight (r
= 0.49, p<0.05), number of nodule and number of pod (r = 0.59, p<0.01), number of nodules and total grain
yield (r = 0.56, p<0.05), and shoot dry weight and N content (r = 0.73, p<0.001). Although The MPN count of
rhizobia in the soil at the experimental site was 1.5 x 104 and contained sufficient number of indigenous
rhizobia, they were not effective that was indicated by the nodulation and yield parameters of the uninoculated
treatments. The data in general, showed that the rhizobial inoculants, particularly FBR 15 was
nutritionally versatile, ecologically competent, and symbiotically effective rhizobia compared to the
commercial inoculant (strain 1018) that could be used as commercial inoculants for pea production after it is
tested (validated) at different agro-ecological conditions.
Key words: Biological yield, Grain yield, inoculation, nodule occupancy, N uptake.
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Keywords
Biological yield, Grain yield, Inoculation, Nodule occupancy, N uptake