SOIL BACTERIA

What bacteria lack in size, they make up in numbers. Bacteria are tiny, one-celled organisms. A teaspoon of productive soil generally contains between 100 million and 1 billion bacteria.

Bacteria has four functional groups.
1. Most are decomposers that consume simple carbon compounds. By this process, bacteria convert energy in soil organic matter into forms useful to the rest of the organisms . A number of decomposers can break down pesticides and pollutants in soil. Decomposers are especially important in stopping or retaining, nutrients in their cells, thus preventing the loss of nutrients, such as nitrogen, from the rooting zone.

2. A second group of bacteria are the mutualists that form partnerships with plants. The most well-known of these are the nitrogen-fixing bacteria.

3. The third group of bacteria is the pathogens.

4. A fourth group, called lithotrophs(literally meaning rock eaters) or chemoautotrophs(which are able to synthesize all of the organic compounds they need from inorganic raw materials in the absence of sunlight.), obtains its energy from compounds of nitrogen, sulfur, iron or hydrogen instead of from carbon compounds.

Functions of Bacteria

Bacteria from all four groups perform important services related to water dynamics.

nutrient cycling

disease suppression.

many organisms will compete with disease-causing organisms in roots and on aboveground surfaces of plants.

Important Bacteria
Nitrogen-fixing bacteria. The plant supplies simple carbon compounds to the bacteria, and the bacteria convert nitrogen (N2) from air into a form the plant host can use. When leaves or roots from the host plant decompose, soil nitrogen increases in the surrounding area.

Nitrifying bacteria change ammonium to nitrite then to nitrate � a preferred form of nitrogen for grasses and most row crops. Nitrate is leached more easily from the soil, so some farmers use nitrification inhibitors to reduce the activity of one type of nitrifying(scavenging potentially toxic nitrogen compounds from their surroundings, including: ammonia and nitrite). Nitrifying bacteria are suppressed in forest soils, so that most of the nitrogen remains as ammonium.

Denitrifying bacteria convert nitrate to nitrogen (N2) or nitrous oxide (N2O) gas. Denitrifiers are anaerobic, meaning they are active where oxygen is absent, such as in saturated soils or inside soil aggregates.

Actinomycetes are a large group of bacteria that grow as hyphae like fungi . They are responsible for the characteristically �earthy� smell of freshly turned, healthy soil. Actinomycetes decompose a wide array of hard-to-decompose compounds and are active at high pH levels. Fungi are more important in degrading these compounds at low pH. A number of antibiotics are produced by actinomycetes such as Streptomyces.

Bacteria are found where?

Bacteria are more competitive when easy-to-metabolize substrates are present such as fresh, young plant residue and the compounds found near living roots.

Bacteria are especially concentrated in the region next to and in the root.

Some believe that plants produce certain types of root exudates to encourage the growth of protective bacteria.

Bacteria that encourage plant growth

Certain strains of the soil bacteria have anti-fungal activity that inhibits some plant pathogens(A disease-causing organism). Those strains can increase plant growth in several ways. They may produce a compound that inhibits the growth of pathogens or reduces invasion of the plant by a pathogen. They may also produce growth factors that directly increase plant growth.

The plant growth-enhancing bacteria occur naturally in soils, but may not be in high enough numbers to have a great effect. Soon, gardners may be able to coat seeds with anti-fungal bacteria to ensure that the bacteria reduce pathogens around the seed and root of the crop.

The next best thing to SOIL BACTERIA can be found here.

Want to build your own web site?

If you are a Webmaster, please don't miss this... it's new... it's brilliant... look at it now!. Join CBClicks Here!

You will need a Clickbank ID [easy to get, no worries!] visit the site now, and see what all the fuss is about. Sorry, what I forgot to mention is, that it is ALL FREE!

jim ellison enterprises
342 broken arrow
floresville, texas 78114
info@basic-info-4-organic-fertilizers.com