Agronomic performance of acid lime in response to microbial fortification of rhizosphere

Abstract

Rhizosphere security has become a pre-requisite to sustain the production by exploiting the microbiome profile of acid lime, fortifying with microbes is one effective way of deciphering the negative interaction between plants and microbes. We conducted an experiment to testify the effect of microbial fortification from different crop rhizosphere in combination with vermicompost on growth and quality of acid lime (cv NRCC Acid Lime-7) at the Experimental Farm of ICAR- Central Citrus Research Institute, Nagpur, Maharashtra. As many eight treatments consisting of rhizosphere soil of acid lime (Citrus aurantifolia Swingle), Nagpur Mandarin (Citrus reticulata Blanco) and microbial consortium (Bacillus pseudomycoides, Acinetobacter radioresistens, Micrococcus yunnanensis, Aspergillus flavus and Paenibacillus alvei) along with vermicompost were tested in acid lime during 2018-20. All the vegetative growth parameters, viz. plant height, trunk girth, tree spread and canopy volume were observed significantly higher with treatment T3 (20 kg vermicompost + 50 ml microbial consortium), well supported by yield attributing physical characters (fruit length, width and weight) and fruit quality parameters (juice content, TSS and acidity). Our studies, hence, suggested a significant interplay of microbial consortium with small starter dose of vermicompost producing both, qualitative as well as quantitative improvements in acid lime cultivation.