Bacteria are highly diverse in nature, different bacterial genera like bacillus, rhizobium, pseudomonas, azospirillum, acetobacter , lactobacillus, are if mixed all together to make a consortia, how can we make same concentration of 108 cell per ml, throughout, so that the final product have same cells of each genera?
Before the development of a microbial consortium, we should study , the compatibility of microorganisms to be used for the concerned host plant and the co-inoculation of these organisms should effect the host directly or indirectly. Combined inoculation of beneficial microorganism showed increased growth and yield characters as well as germination, nutrient uptake, plant height, number of branches, nodulation, yield, and total biomass of crops.
If you have a consortium obtained from an enrichment, the abundance of the different populations will be not the same. Some of the populations will be the core of the consortium, dominating the community, while some others may be found in very low "concentrations".
Usually, people working with consortiums standardize the culturing conditions and preserve them by freezing them in glycerol or in another cryoprotectant, to use them as a "seed" for culturing and experiments. An OD and a certain volume of the "seed" can be defined as the inocula to start the experiments.
However, the different abundances in the community may change during experimentation, that is why I recommend storing enough of the initial culture of the consortium, and it is better if you describe the community by metabarcoding. It is also ideal to isolate the different microbes of the community, but it can occur that some of them can not be isolated. If you have the microbes isolated you can also make assays with them individually or replicate the consortium with the isolates.
On the other hand, if you are working with an "artificial" consortium and you have all the microbes isolated, you can define the initial cn of every single microbe. However, when you start the consortium after the community is established the cn will change causing even metabolically compatible populations also compete, in general.
Quite unlikely to succeed..making 108 cfu is a different ball game....
Sakshi Tewari Considering an experience of commercial bioagents testing, I can say that almost any consortium has rapidly changing viability of all but one predominant microorganism. To avoid it, some colleagues used lyophilized separately bacteria (up to 12) and mixed them just before application (Nobactra TM)
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