Influence Of Highly Efficient Pectinolytic Microbial Consortium From A Different Agro Climatic Region On Jute Retting Vis-À- Vis That Of A Nitrogen - Fixing Pectinolytic Bacteria From The Same Region.

Abstract

The difference in the quality of jute fiber belonging to different agro climatic regions had been mainly attributed to plant growth and more importantly to the quality and quantity of retting water. Our study have shown that difference in the retting capability of microflora belonging to different agro climatic regions contribute significantly to the quality of jute. However, attempts to introduce highly effective microbial population from a region producing better jute fiber to a distant one producing inferior quality and having different agro-climatic conditions was not successful because of diminished growth. This was probably due to antagonism of the indigenous microbial population towards the extraneous inoculum, since under sterile laboratory condition the former showed superior retting capability in the same conditions of temperature and pH. The diminished retting due to diminished growth could be partially overcome by introducing nitrogen fixing bacteria; whereby coarseness of fibers could be reduced to the maximum by 16.6%. However, introduction of nitrogen fixing bacteria by itself, particularly when isolated from a nearby region was most successful and was found to reduce coarseness of jute fibers by 30%. This particular nitrogen fixing bacteria was found also to have pectinolytic activity and was identified as Agrobacterium tumefasciens . This report raises the possibility that possibly many bacteria accelerate the retting process by more than one function.