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EFFICACY OF BIOCHAR WITH IMMOBILIZED MICROBES FOR SOIL FERTILIZATION

Svetlana Selivanovskaya

Abstract

The issue of biochar application as a non-conventional fertilizer is of growing interest currently. Biochar is a product of the pyrolysis of organic waste for example and unlike conventional fertilizer, biochar is a long-acting agent. The use of such fertilizer should not only increase the yield of crops, but also the sequestration of carbon in the soil and reduce the impact on climate change. An additional advantage of biochar is its developed surface, which makes it possible to use it as a carrier for beneficial microorganisms. In our study we used biochar obtained from poultry waste - chicken manure. The possibility of obtaining biochar, modified by immobilization of bacteria on it, was tested. A bacterial consortium consisting of Azospirillum zeae, Bacillus megaterium, Pseudomonas fluorescens and Pseudomonas putida, possessing phosphate immobilizing, nitrogen fixing and plant pathogen inhibiting properties, was used. It was revealed that in the process of immobilization of the bacterial consortium counts of 2-9 * 106 / g biochar can be achieved. In a 30-day laboratory experiment, the effect of introducing a biochar and biochar modified by microorganisms on the functional activity of microbial communities of soil and wheat plants was analyzed. The state of the microbial community was assessed on the basis of its physiological profile, determined by the Biolog Ecoplate? method. The results obtained were subjected to ordination. Estimation of the effect on plants was based on the height of the shoot and the biomass. It was shown that both biochar and microbially modified biochar had an effect on soil microbial communities and that the effect of the modified variant was higher. Analysis of wheat plants revealed that the introduction of biochar into the soil in an amount of 1% led to an increase in the biomass of plants (determined on a dry basis) by 1.5-2.1 times, whereas when introducing modified biochar, the biomass increase was 2.2-3.5 times higher. Both the initial and the modified biochars had no effect on the height of the shoots of the plants. Thus, the obtained results testify the effectiveness of the biochar modified with microorganisms for soil fertilization.

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DOI resolver: doi.org/10.5593/sgem2018v/6.4/s08.019

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