Growth and nodulation of Sesbania Rostrata as affected by plant maturity and soil types
1997
Halimi M.S. | Mohd Anuar P.
An experiment was carried out to determine the most suitable time for inoculating Sesbania rostrata growing on a mineral soil (Bungor series) and peat, following a previous study that indicated that nodulation and growth of S. rostrata were dependent on plant maturity. S. rostrata was inoculated with Azorhizobium strain UPMR 44, at ages 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 weeks old. At harvest, stem nodule number was found to be significantly different for the different times of inoculation. The highest nodule number was on plants inoculated on the 6th week for plants from peat and the 7th week for those from mineral soil. Root nodules were found to form earlier on plants on peat (maximum nodulation for inoculation done on 2nd week) than on mineral soil (4th week). This is because stem nodules can only be formed when primordial cells are present, whereas this is not required for root nodulation, and therefore, stem nodules would only appear at a later stage of growth. For each treatment, the number of nodules were significantly higher on plants growing on peat than on mineral soil. Stem and root nodule dry weights showed similar trend to that of nodule number. Despite these differences on nodule dry weights, no significant difference in plant biomass was obtained between treatments. These results suggested that inoculation of root and stem of S. rostrata can be applied and timed accordingly for maximum nodulation.
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