Microbial Aided Leaching of Potassium from Sri Lankan Feldspar
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Date
2012
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Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka
Abstract
Potassium is an essential major plant nutrient and also a non-renewable resource. It plays a vital role in plant nutrition. Majority of the soils of the world are too low in available potassium for production of good yields. Potassium containing agrochemicals remains relatively expensive and supplementing potassium deficiency with agro fertilizers is costly. The uses of alternative indigenous resources such as feldspar and mica which are potassium rich naturally occurring minerals are gaining importance against costly agro fertilizers (Badr et al., 2006). Certain groups of microorganisms including bacteria such as Bacillus mucilaginosus and fungi like Aspergillus niger are known to solubilize potassic minerals into soluble form which can be utilized by the plants (Lin et al. 2002; Han, and Lee, 2006). Microbes can enhance mineral dissolution rate by producing and excreting metabolic by products that interact with mineral surface (Barker et al., 1998). Combination of potassic rock minerals with potassium solubilizing microorganisms could constitute a biofertiziler which provides a sustainable solution to improve plant nutrition and production. This study investigates the potassium solubilizing effect of Bacillus mucilaginosus, Bacillus cereus, and Aspergillus from Sri Lankan potassic rock mineral feldsfar.
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Keywords
Science and technology, Agriculture