GLYCEROL-BASED FERMENTATION BY PLANT GROWTH PROMOTING ASPERGILLUS NIGER FOR ITS FURTHER FORMULATION AND APPLICATION IN TOMATO GROWTH.

Sustainable crop production includes methods of growing food in a responsible manner avoiding application and dependence on chemically produced fertilizers and pesticides. The latter means development of approaches that lead to environmentally mild inputs based on the production-consumption-recycling principle. Biofertilizers are an important tool to achieve sustainable crop production. In this work, we report the results of experiments on growth and spore/mycelium production of plant growth promoting A. niger applying standard nutritional medium (potato-dextrose broth, PDB) enriched with 3% insoluble phosphate (20 to 200 mesh hydroxyapatite of animal-bone origin, HABO) and 0 to 80 g/L glycerol (a by-product of biodiesel production. Results showed the ability of A. niger to acidify the medium with the highest titratable acidity of 28.9 mmol/1 (at 5% of glycerol) and solubilize animal bone char under these conditions. As a second stage of the experimental work, the resulting final products were used to formulate gel-based inoculant. Both, the spores and mycelium produced during the fermentation process were further used as a base for formulation to make the biofertilizer production the key in the Sustainable Agriculture. Storage of the resulting products reported here was facilitated by the presence of glycerol in the formulation system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]