Advances In Agricultural Microbiology 2/Ed (Hard Book)

Microorganisms and Mobilization of Nutrients for Plant Growth

Management of Pathogens, Pests and Weeds through Microorganisms

Strategies in Bioconversion

Index.

Subba Rao N.S. Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, India. Agricultural microbiology is a relatively new branch of soil science which has emerged as a potentially useful and district discipline, especially in the current context of increasing emphasis on the use of renewable sources in agriculture. Microorganisms have relevance to agriculture in several ways: biological nitrogen fixation, the mobilization of phosphorus into plant roots, the recycling of farm wastes into food, feeds and fuel, and as biopesticides.

Some of the potential areas of research and development include the production of ethanol fuel and biogas from lignocellulosic biomass, single cell protein from bacteria, fungi, protozoa and viruses, and biofertilizers from nitrogen-fixing microorganisms. Potential biotechnological developments in agriculture include genetic engineering with microorganisms to produce strains possessing greater cellulase, nitrogenase and pesticidal activity than the parent strains. Molecular biologists have unravelled gene clusters in microorganisms which control the synthesis of metabolites and the judicious manipulaion of such genes may provide an array of microorganisms which convert wastes for use both in industry and agriculture.

The contributors to Advances in Agricultural Microbiology, experts from around the world, review a range of recent work in the most important of these areas. The volume will be a useful reference for all those interested in the wide and varied aspects of microbial technology in biology and agriculture both in its fundamental and applied aspects.