The use of indigenous microorganisms or IMO has been advocated by some non-government organizations and farmers groups to improve soil fertility. Some groups claim that there is no solid scientific basis. What is your opinion about the use of indigenous microorganisms to improve soil fertility?
@ Luz, I personally support it. Because if you have beneficial indigenous microorganisms that can effectively used as microbial inoculant of the native soil where their build up will be easier due to same environment and less competition to developed themselves so there they have less resistant to improve soil quality and enhance crop productivity. They also may get their known organic matter to break, to release the nutrients.
No doubt about its utility, infact it is call of the day to use indigenous microbes, rather crop rhizosphere specific microbes to engineer rhizosphere for bioprospecting soil health and plant health in tandem.
When the life activity and beneficial microbial action is low the addition of probiotic beneficial organisms can be recommended.
The growth of legumes is the best way I believe in improving soil results.
The measure of improved biological soil function is the pH and soil organic level.
Effective microbes can be a stop gap measure but more important is working with soil in a comprehensive and working with physical, chemical and biological factors that will improve it long term through the farmer decisions in managing this critical resource.
Take a soil analysis and develop a plan for optimizing the soil over the long run. Set goals and make analysis to see how you are doing and how to adapt your growing according.
Developing your own compost and using it for production can be extremely useful fo addressing a multitude of soil based issues.
IMO is a promising biological tools for sustainable agriculture and environment. Indeed, the microbes are indigenous so it will inhibit the environment naturally. several researches were conducted to improve plant growth and production by utilizing IMO as biostimulants and bioregulators
I think they could be a very important contribution to soil fertility. IMO, for many reasons, are able to help plants to remove and take some nutriments from the soil, and like this, they are helping to move the soil nutrients balance, and that's very important for sustainable development of agroecosystems. Thanks,
I think locally available microorganisms are more efficient than exotic microorganisms.@@luz
@Luz, I think indigenous microorganisms (IMO) are always preferable than exotic organisms. IMO are easily available around our reaches and familiar to inoculate them with their usages, and finally can improve soil fertility.
This will essentially constitute an environmentally friendly soil improvement approach.
I thank everyone J. C. Tarafdar, Anoop Kumar Srivastava, Paul Reed Hepperly, Anthony Meli, Md. Abul Kalam Azad, Anupam Kumar, Yoel Beovides García, Wiwiek Harsonowati responded to my question. Based on the answers, it is clear that indigenous microorganisms could improve soil fertility. However, it is not yet clear how these microorganisms can be enhanced in the soil. Could you suggest any proven methods like the use of any decomposed food materials?
The arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and the biological nitrogen fixing nodular bacteria give the indigenous organims most proven for soil fertility improvement.
Since 80% of the atmosphere is nitrogen there is no real lack of nitrogen but only the lack of the agricultural systems and management to harness this.
There is a world lack of Phosphorus in the soil but the mycorrhizal fungi can give an optimal P_response with one quarter that of plants with indigenous mycorrhizal optimized.
Up to 30% of the crop plant photosynthesis is repartriated to feed the mycorrhize and the soil microbes.
This give the symbiosis the ability to counteract the depletion of soil carbon which is the source of water retention and delivery under normal fluctuating water dynamanics.
These symbiosis relationships are where our plant production systems need to focus.
The biggest art lies in identifying the microbial hot spots in a given field in order to make use of indigenous microbes. How the microbial corridors of a given are identified..??Unless we stress on thos issues, this job is not so simple..Luz
Being concise, improvement and sustaining soil fertility by using soil mirobes without improving soil organic carbon content is a myth. Although, application of rhizobium species specific to a particular legume crop (if cultivated first time or after long time in field) may improve N content of soil.
For example, soils of western Rajasthan i.e. Bikaner (India) have about 0.1 % soil organic carbon and have poor fertility as well as microbial properties. Here use of IMO without improving SOC will not manifest any positive impact on soil fertility.
In short, improvement in SOC will improve microbial properties and soil fertility, .......and not improvement in microbial activity will improve SOC and soil fertility.
I think there are several methodsto use of any decomposed food materials, even, I'm interested to know method to use cassava byproducts from the ethanol and stach factories, Do you know some of them, please??
I feel the IMO are useful or beneficial and may need further exploring
Dear Dr. J. C. Tarafdar thank you very much for sharing this very interesting article on how to cultivate indigenous microorganisms. I believe that many researchers will find it useful. - Luz
Dear Sunil Sunil Kumar , thank you for emphasizing a very important point on the connection between soil organic carbon and indigenous microorganisms. - Luz
Hello Anoop Anoop Kumar Srivastava , thank you very much for sharing a crucial issue about the benefits of indigenous microorganisms. I certainly agree with your point. - Luz
I thank very much Paul Reed Hepperly , Yoel Beovides García , and Kafula Chisanga for their very relevant responses to this discussion. - Luz
Using IMO is very promising to improve soil fertility. It makes organic matter available to plants easily, improves soil health as well as increase crop productivity.