Application of Biofertilizers for Sustainable Agriculture

Abstract

The use of microbial inoculants as a source of bio-fertilizers has become a hope in the present time. It is an eco-friendly way to fertilize the crop plants; it can solve the problem of high coat of fertilizers and help in saving the economy of the world, resulting in sustainable agricultural development. These biofertilizers use living microorganisms that establish symbiotic and asymbiotic relationships with the plants or are an inoculation of microorganisms which promotes the plant growth by increasing the primary nutrient supply to the host plant and also retains the soil fertility. This chapter describes the facts of experimental results of the use of biofertilizers on different crops in India and as well as in other countries. Biofertilizers are classified on the basis of their association with plants. Generally nitrogenous and phosphatic fertilizers are used in crops plant for higher yield. The Rhizobium, Azotobacter, BGA, Frankia, Bacillus, and Mycorrhiza fulfil the need of fertilizers as microbial inoculants of N and P.