Department of Horticulture, Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat-785 013, Assam, India.
Biofertilizers are microbial preparations containing living cells of different microorganisms which have the ability to mobilize plant nutrients in soil from unusable to usable form through biological process. They are environmental friendly and play significant role in crop production. Previollsly it is mainly used for field crops but now-a-days it is used for fruit crops also. Biofertilizers are able to fix 20–200 kg N/ha/year, solubilize P in the range of 30–50 kg P2O5 ha/year and mobilizes P, Zn, Fe, Mo to varying extent. Biofertilizers are use in live formulation of beneficial microorganism which on application to seed, root or soil, mobilize the availability of nutrients particularly by their biological activity and help to build up the lost microflora and in turn improve the soil health in general. Thus the use of biofertiltzer is increasing day by day due to increase in the price of chemical fertilizers, its beneficial effect on soil health and increase in production of crop.
