Biofertilizers and their Application in Flower Crops—A Review

摘要

Biofertilizers are ready to use live formulates of such beneficial microorganisms which on application to seeds, seedlings or soil, mobilize the availability of nutrients particularly by their biological activity and help to build up the micro-flora and in turn improve the soil health. They are eco-friendly and play significant role in crop production. Earlier, it is mainly used for field crops but now-a-days it is used for flower crops also. Various biofertilizers viz. Azotobacter, Azospirillum, phosphorus solubilizing bacteria and AM fungi show their suitability for application in different flower crops such as rose, tuberose, carnation, marigold, aster, jasmine, etc. Biofertilizers are able to fix 20-200 kg N/ha/year, solubilize P in the range of30-50 kg/ha/year and mobilize P, Zn, Fe and Mo to varying extent. These not only help in improving the nutrient uptake by the plants, releasing of growth hormones and antibiotics but also improve the quality of produce along with reduced cost of production. To maximize the beneficial plant growth response, it is to identify the best strains of microorganisms, verify their compatibility and combined efficiency before using them in crop production system as a potential candidate for sustainable systems.The application of biofertilizers has been discussed in this review that leads to improvement in the plant biomass and yield of flower crops.