Annals of Horticulture

Vermicompost is a slow releasing, organic manure which have most of the macro as well asmicro nutrients in chelated form and supplement the nutrient requirement of plants for longerperiod. Generally, the vermicompost mixture contains 9.15 to 17.98 % Organic carbon, 1.5 to 2.50 % Nitrogen, 1.0 to 1.70 % Phosphorus and 1.4 to 1.6 % Potassium. Similarly bio-fertilizershelp in improving biological activities of desirable micro- organisms in the soil and also improvethe crop yield and quality of the produce. The micro- organisms like Azotobacter are consideredimportant not only for their nitrogen fixing efficiency, but also for their ability to produceantibacterial and antifungal components and growth regulators. Azotobacter spp. is knownmainly for their ability to produce plant hormones as well as polyamines and amino acids inculture, but they are also involved in the biological fixation of N and the increased activity ofglutamate dehydrogenase and glutamine synthetase. Likewise, some phosphate solubilizingmicrobes like PSB are also found to be effective in improving phosphorus use efficiency.