Biofertilizers

The green revolution brought impressive gains in food production but with insufficient concern for sustainability. Dependence on chemical fertilizers for future agricultural growth would mean further loss in soil quality, possibilities of water contamination and unsustainable burden on the fiscal system Both the over- and under application of fertilizer and the poor management of resources have damaged the environment. Because agriculture is a soil-based industry that extracts nutrients from the soil, effective and efficient approaches to slowing that removal and returning nutrients to the soil will be required in order to maintain and increase crop productivity and sustain agriculture for the long term. Biofertilizers play a very significant role in improving soil fertility by fixing atmospheric nitrogen, both, in association with plant roots and without it, solubilise insoluble soil phosphates and produces plant growth substances in the soil. They are in fact being promoted to harvest the naturally available, biological system of nutrient mobilization.This book should be useful to researchers, students and farming community.