Evaluation of Potential Microbial Strains and Lentil Genotypes for Enhancing BNF and Production of Lentil Crop in Pothwar

Lentil (Lens culinaris L) is Pakistan's second main winter season legume crop after chickpea and is known to be vital for health. Rhizobia have a natural capacity to fix atmospheric nitrogen in legume crops through a symbiotic relationship with legumes- rhizobium, producing nodules on their roots. It is important to maintain an optimal rhizobial population in the rhizosphere in order to enhance nodulation, N2 fixation, and yield of lentil crop. The experiment was conducted to Evaluation of potential Microbial strains and lentil genotypes for enhancing BNF and production of lentil crop in Pothwar. Lentil varieties used were: V1 = NIA-Masoor-2005, V2 = Markaz-2009, V3 = Punjab-Masoor-2009, V4 = Chakwal-Masoor-2011, V5 = NIA-Masoor-2016 and the five rhizobial strains, RS0, RS1, RS2, RS3, RS4 and RS5 (Their accession numbers lie with the Institute of Soil science, PMAS AAUR) were used. Inoculation of seed with Rhizobium strains significantly increased the plant height (17.58%), number of branches plant-1 (25.67%), number of pods plant-1 (15.42%), number of nodules plant-1 (34%) and the N-content of shoots (12.70) of lentil crop as compared to control. Consequently, rhizobium strains contributed to improved soil productivity and could minimize the cost of production of next crop by reducing inputs in the form of nitrogen fertilizers. It has been found that rhizobic inoculation is more productive and better yields, as compared to control. Maximum growth and yield components was recorded in variety, V5 (NIA-Masoor-2016) followed by variety, V3 (Punjab-Masoor-2009) and minimum production was recorded in V4 (Chakwal-Masoor-2011). NIA-Masoor-2016 had larger yielded better than Chakwal-Masoor-2011. It was also clear from the present results that interactive effect of rhizobial strains and lentil varieties produced the plants with more yield than control which might have resulted in higher nitrogen fixation and consequently higher dry matter production.