Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

SOLE CARBON SOURCE UTILIZATION (SCSU) PATTERN OFNODULE FORMING RHIZOBIA OF SESBANIA SPECIES

Kuldeep Singh, Rajesh Gera, Nidhi Sharma, Jagdish Parshad, Sushil Kumar Singh and AnilKumar

Abstract

Nitrogen fixing rhizobia promises another method to plant N fertilizer supplies. Growing high N2-fixingplants like Sesbania is useful not only for economic perspective but also for soil amelioration. Along withthe phenotypic criteria, carbon utilization is more perceptive than other methods like intrinsic antibioticresistance. Selected rhizobial isolates of various Sesbania spp. were used to evaluate the sole carbon sourceutilization (SCSU) pattern by means of twenty two diverse sugars. The analysis of the data using NTSYSPCsoftware resulted in diversification of the rhizobial isolates into two major groups and divergenceamong them started at 48% level of similarity coefficient. Dextrose was the isolates’ most commonly usedcarbon source (88%), whereas inulin was the least.