Mass Production of Innoculant Azotobacter, Azospirillum and Phospate Solubilizing Bacteria Using Alternative Media.

Abstract

Azotobacter, Azospirillum and phosphate solubilizing bacteria are the most commonest microbial inoculant used in preparation of biofertilizer. To have good biofertilizers inoculant, the high number of inoculant cells, and good carriers as well as the method of carriers sterilization are among the most important factors determined the quality of biofertilizer. Related to the number of inoculant cells in carriers, the growing medium used to cultivate the microbial cells plays very important role. For mass production of microbial cells of inoculant, the medium should be able to support fast growth with high number of microbial cells of inoculant but the price of medium should be reasonably cheap. This study aimed to find cheap growing medium that can support high number of microbial inoculant cells and the components of the medium should be easy to obtain and the price is cheap. The study was conducted at the Laboratory of Soil Biotechnology, and the Laboratory of Soil Chemistry and Soil Fertility, the Department of Soil Science and Land Resources, Faculty of Agriculture, Bogor Agricultural University (IPB). The results showed that the media IPB RI-1 was able to support the growth of 1010 cfu / ml Azotobacter, 108 cfu / ml Azospirillum and 109 cfu / ml Phospate Solubilizing Bacterium. The Nutrient Broth media was only able to produce microbial cells much as 108 cfu / ml media. This means that the media IPB RI-1 increased 100-fold population of Azotobacter compared to the growth of this bacterium in Nutrient Broth and Phospate Solubilizing Bacteria increased 10-fold of their population in Nutrient Broth medium. The costs of the IPB RI-1 and IPB RI-2 were much cheaper compared to the cost of Nutrient Broth media. The cost of media IPB RI-1 only 3% (Rp 945) and IPB RI-2 about 2% (Rp 690) of the cost of media Nutrient Broth (Rp 27.752).