Soil Microbiology

The present enlarged edition covers four aspects in Horticulture viz., Fundamentals of Horticulture, Plant Propagation, Pomology and Ornamental Horticulture. It caters to the students of undergraduate programmes in Horticulture being offered in State Agricultural universities and Botany courses of the conventional universities. In this edition Multiple Choice Questions have been included for the benefit of the students.

Subba Rao N.S. obtained his B.Sc. (Hort.), M.Sc. (Agri.) in Horticulture and Ph.D. in Horticulture degrees in the year 1976, 1978 and 1989 respectively from Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU), Coimbatore with distinct academic records. He has been awarded five Gold Medals for his academic achievements in both undergraduate and higher educations. As a Horticulturist, he has more than 30 years of service in various branches of horticulture including hill plantation crops. He has served in various capacities at TNA, Coimbatore including its research centres at Kodaikanal, Yercaud and Periyakulam, published more than 100 international and national journals and contributed chapters in four edited books besides authoring three textbooks in Horticulture. He has got a rich experience in teaching of Undergraduate and Postgraduate students for more than 25 and 20 years respectively and has so far guided 9 Ph.D. and 17 M.Sc. (Hort.) students. He has been conferred the Fellow of AIPUB in 2007 for his outstanding contributions made in the field of Horticulture with special reference to banana by the Association for Improvement in Production and Utilization of Banana, NRCB, Trichy. Besides, he has been awarded ISHS Medal by the President of International Society for Horticultural Science, Leuven, Belgium in recognition of his meritorious Service to the Society as Convener of the Il International Symposium of Papaya, India, 2008.

Brief Contents:

Introduction • Soil, the Natural Medium for Plant Growth • Soil Microorganisms • The Rhizosphere and the Phyllosphere • Nitrogen Fixation in Free-living and Associative Symbiotic Bacteria • Nitrogen Fixation by Free-living Blue-Green Algae • Nitrogen Fixation by Symbiotic Blue-Green Algae • Rhizobium and Legume Root Nodulation

• Actinorhizal Plants (Frankia-Induced Nodulation) • Organic Matter Decomposition

• Nitrification and Denitrification • Microbial Products Influencing Plant Growth

• Sulphur, Phosphorus and Trace Element Nutrition • Biodegradation of Pesticides and Pollutants • Mycorrhizae • Biotechnology in Agriculture.