Inoculation of bean plants cultivars with rhizobium strains

Abstract

Nitrogen (N) is the most widely extracted and imported nutrient by the bean plant, constituting the greatest limitation to the biomass production, development and yield of this species. This requirement is met by the use of nitrogen fertilizers which, however, have proved highly expensive, of low efficient and may cause environmental problems. One alternative to the N supply to the bean plant is the biological nitrogen fixation (BNF), performed by nitrogen fixing bacteria (BFNN or rhizobia) inoculated to the seeds. Works have shown benefits to the bean crop from the FBN in the field (Ferreira et al., 2009), but to maximize their effects, there is still the need to investigate a number of factors which affect the process, including if there is any differential behavior of the cultivars (cvs.) as regarding the inoculation with rhizobium strains. The objective of the present work was to evaluate the response of cvs. of different commercial groups of common bean to the inoculation of the seeds with two rhizobium strains.