Summary
Seed of maize, tomato, and wheat was inoculated with cultures of Azotobacter, Clostridium, and a nitrogen-fixing facultative Bacillus and grown in a nutrient-deficient sand and a highly fertile silt loam.
In sand, wheat showed a significant positive response to inoculation with Azotobacter and Clostridium but maize and tomato were unaffected by inoculation.
When inoculated seed was planted in Lima silt loam there were significant increases in the growth of maize, tomato, and wheat to treatment with Clostridium, inoculated maize and wheat responded to Azotobacter inoculation while only wheat responded to inoculation with the facultative Bacillus.
In pure-culture studies of the ability of these cultures to establish upon plant roots it was shown that Azotobacter did not colonize the roots of lucerne, maize, tomato, or wheat to any great extent. Bacillus and Clostridium were moderate colonizers of plant roots reaching from 1 to 20 per cent the levels reached byPseudomonas fluorescens on the same plants.
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The author held a Fulbright Travel Grant for the 1961–1962 academic year.
Agronomy Paper No. 595. Supported in part by funds provided by Regional Research Project NE 39.
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Rovira, A.D. Microbial inoculation of plants. Plant Soil 19, 304–314 (1963). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01379484
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01379484