Vol. 9, Special Issue 1, Part G (2025)

The experiment trial was conducted at Oilseeds Research Station, Tindivanam during 2021– 2023, to evaluate the response of Pseudomonas Chloraphis in enhancing Zinc uptake efficiency in Groundnut crop in Zinc deficient soil under rainfed and irrigated condition. In this study Zinc solubilising bacteria Pseudomonas Chloraphis was applied in Groundnut as seed treatment 1 kg/ha and soil application 2 kg/ha with different levels of ZnSO₄ viz., 100 % (25 kg ZnSO₄), 75 %(18.5 kg ZnSO₄), 50 % (12.5 kg ZnSO₄) as basal application. The results revealed that the application of recommended dose of fertilizer along ZnSO₄ (12.5 kg/ha) + Zinc solubilizing bacteria (ZSB15) recorded significant increase in plant height with 52.7 cm respectively and nodule count with 83.0 respectively on par with application of recommended dose of fertilizer ZnSO₄ (25 kg/ha) + Zinc solubilizing bacteria (ZSB15)) with 86.6. The Rhizobium population was enumerated and the maximum population of 29.5 x10³ cfu/ml was recorded with application of Zinc solubilising bacteria (T₄). The yield attributes the number of pods and pod yield was recorded significant in the treatments with application of Zn solubilising bacteria with ZnSO₄. Maximum yield of 18.63 and 1758 kg/ha respetively, was recorded with application of ZnSO_{4 -} 12.5 kg/ha with Zinc solubilising bacteria in seed treatment and for soil application. Exogenous application of zinc sources, similar to fertilizer application has been advocated to various crops. This causes transformation of about 96 to 99 percent of applied available zinc to various unavailable forms. The zinc thus, made unavailable can be reverted back to available form by inoculating bacterial strain capable of solubilizing it. Since zinc is a limiting factor in crop production, this study on zinc solubilization by bacteria has an immense importance in zinc nutrition to plant.