Volume 192, 31 August 2015, Pages 421–428
Bradyrhizobium yuanmingense related strains form nitrogen-fixing symbiosis with Cajanus cajan L. in Dominican Republic and are efficient biofertilizers to replace N fertilization
Highlights
- •
- Found by the first time that strains close to B. yuanmingense nodulates C. cajan.
- •
- Scarce natural nodulation of C. cajan in Dominican Republic but high biodiversity of nodulating strains.
- •
- Biofertilization with native strains improves yield in soils without resident nodulanting rhizobia.
- •
- Biofertilization produces similar or better yield than mineral N fertilization.
Abstract
Cajanus cajan
L. is a legume whose green seeds are consumed in Caribean countries
such as Dominican Republic where is a horticultural plant highly
appreciated by the consumers. In this work we isolated several
slow-growing rhizobial strains nodulating C. cajan that were found to be closely related to Bradyrhizobium yuanmingense
according to the analysis of 16S rRNA gene sequences. These strains
were genetically diverse on the basis of their RAPD patterns and showed
high variability in nodulation ability and N-fixation on hydroponic
conditions. Highly effective strains used as biofertilizers in four
different soils from Dominican Republic showed that biofertilization of C. cajan
with these strains produced the same or even higher yield than the
mineral nitrogen fertilization. Therefore, biofertilization with native Bradyrhizobium strains can be adopted instead of chemical fertilization to improve both the yield and the quality of C. cajan. This is the first report about the nodulation of this legume by strains close to B. yuanmingense in Dominican Republic where the natural nodulation of C. cajan
is scarce and then, the biofertilization can be crucial to increase the
yield of this horticultural crop very important for human feeding.
Keywords
- Biofertiliser;
- Bradyrhizobium yuanmingense;
- Cajanus cajan;
- Effectiveness;
- Biological nitrogen Fixation
Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
