Legume Research
Web of Science
  • Year: 2014
  • Volume: 37
  • Issue: 2

Superior symbiotic performance ofnative bradyrhizobia isolates over foreign inoculants with cowpea cultivars in India

  • Author:
  • C. Appunu, Ravinder Kumar, C. Mahadevaiah, V. Sreenivasa, Devyani Sen, Banshi Dhar
  • Total Page Count: 5
  • Page Number: 175 to 179

Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi-221005, India

Division of Crop Improvement, Sugarcane Breeding Institute, Coimbatore, 641 007, Tamil Nadu, India.

*Corresponding author's e-mail: cappunu@gmail.com

Online published on 19 April, 2014.

Abstract

Efficiency of symbiotic interactions of native and foreign inoculants bradyrhizobia isolates with six cowpea varieties (CO1, CO3, CO4, CO6, Paiyur 1 and Vamban 1) were evaluated under field conditions. Based on sequence analysis of 16S-23S rRNA intergenic spacer (IGS) region, three native isolateswere classified asB. yuanmingense. Cowpea varieties inoculated with bradyrhizobia showed significantly superior nodulation, nitrogenase activity, dry matter accumulation, and seed yield compared to uninoculated treatments. The native B. yuanmingense strains CR03 and CR09 exhibited host-cultivar specificity with CO3, and Paiyur 1, respectively. Plants inoculated with native B. yuanmingense isolatesproduced higher plant dry matter accumulation and seed yield compared to foreign B. japonicum inoculated plants. Correlation coefficients analysis revealed that plant dry matter accumulation emerged as the best criterion for selection of effective cowpea-bradyrhizobia associations in given physical and biological conditions.

Keywords

Cowpea, B. yuanmingense, Nitrogen fixation, Symbiotic efficiency