Journal of Eco-friendly Agriculture

Biodynamic farming refers to working with energies which create and maintain life. Basically there are two types of biodynamic preparations: biodynamic field spray (BD 500-BD 501) and biodynamic compost preparations (BD 502-BD 507). The BD sets are used in cow pat pit, BD compost, biodynamic liquid manure and biodynamic liquid pesticides. Enormous literature and supportive material justify the use of these farming systems to combat soil pollution created by use of various chemicals. However, when it comes to scientific explanation, the work is scanty. The present work reports the enzymatic and siderophore production potential of fungal isolates of these biodynamic preparations. Out of 25 fungal isolates from biodynamic preparations, high pectinase activity was exhibited by isolate no. BD 0–7 (0.939 μ mole ml⁻¹ min⁻¹) followed by BD 0–2 (0.894 μ mole ml⁻¹ min⁻¹) and BD 0–8 (0.852 μ mole ml⁻¹ min⁻¹) all these fungus isolates are from BD 500 biodynamic preparations. High cellulase activity was exhibited by isolate no. BD 6⁻¹ (0.1107 μ mole ml⁻¹ min⁻¹) followed by BD 0–5 (0.1053 μ mole ml⁻¹ min⁻¹) and BD 5–4 (0.1044 μ mole ml⁻¹ min⁻¹) from BD 506, BD 500 and BD 504 biodynamic preparations, respectively. High amylase activity was exhibited by isolate no. BD 3–4 (0.1284 μ mole ml⁻¹ min⁻¹) followed by BD 3–3 (0.1092 μ mole ml⁻¹ min⁻¹) and BD 4⁻¹ (0.1053 μ mole ml⁻¹ min⁻¹) from BD 503 and BD 504, respectively. High siderophore production efficiency (%) were exhibited by isolate no. BD 4–5 (285.71%) followed by BD 0–2 (200.00%) and BD 6–1 (190.0%) from BD 504, BD 500 and BD 506. High enzyme activity shown by various isolateds from different BD preparations explains the degradative powers associated with these preparations. The siderophore production indicates the iron chelating activity which is an indication of plant growth promoting power.