Bikash Chandra Behera¹, Sameer Kumar Singdevsachan², Rashmi Ranjan Mishra², Bijay Kumar Sethi², Sushil Kumar Dutta¹, Hruday Nath Thatoi^1,

The present study was conducted to isolate phosphate solubilising bacteria from mangrove soils of Mahanadi river delta, Odisha, India and evaluate their phosphate solubilising ability. In total forty-eight phosphate solubilising bacteria were isolated from different soil samples. Based on their size of halo zone formation on NBRIP agar medium and decrease in intensity of colour of the broth medium fourteen isolates were selected as efficient phosphate solubilising strains. Their efficiency on NBRIP agar medium were ranged from 108-175. Their ability to decrease the intensity of bluecolour of the NBRIP-BPB broth medium was ranged from 0.87 and 1.188 (O.D at 600nm). Phosphate solubilising ability test of these fourteen isolates showed that they can solubilise tricalciumphosphate from 8.21 to 48.70μg/ml and most of the isolates could acidified the medium supernatant below 4.0 from the initial pH 7.0. Morphological and biochemical characterisation of the isolates allowed us to identify them as members of the following genera: Pseudomonas, Bacillus, Alcaligens, Klebsiella, Serratia, Azotobacters and Micrococcus. All the fourteen PSB isolated from mangrove soil of Mahanadi river delta could efficiently solubilise tricalcium phosphate in the medium which could probably help for future application in biotechnology.

mangrove, tricalcium phosphate, phosphate solubilisation, bacteria