Background:
Sulphur (S) is one of the essential plant nutrients and accounts for about 10% of the total N content. The area under Rapeseed & Mustard cultivation in India is 6.70 million hectares and the amount of sulfur required for Rapeseed & Mustard alone is 134000 tonnes. In addition, other oilseed crops and pulses also require sulfur. Therefore, with the growing emphasis on pulses and oil seeds production, the Sulfur requirement will also rise as the Indian soils are deficient or low in plant available sulfur. Most of the S in soil environments (>95% of total sulfur) is bound to organic molecules, and therefore not directly available to plants. Use of S oxidizing bacteria enhances the rate of natural oxidation of S and speeds up the production of sulfates. This process makes S more available to plants at their critical stages and consequently results in increased plant yield and quality. Currently to provide S to crop plants gypsum is used. But the use of sulphur oxidizing bacteria can replace the use of gypsum and elemental S can be used instead. The use of elemental S and sulphur oxidizing bacteria in place of gypsum can reduce the cost of cultivation and protects soil health.:
Technology Details:
The formulation contains S-oxidizing bacterium, Alcaligens sp. which when supplied with elemental sulphur can replace gypsum to the tune of 100 %. The formulation helps to oxidize elemental sulphur applied to crop plants as well as other reduced forms of sulphur present in the soil. The advantage of this formulation is increase in yield by 7 % and oil content by 5 %. Inoculation with this formulation leads to an increase of six Kg seed yield per Kg sulphur applied and three kg oil per Kg sulphur applied.