Assessing the Impact of Corn-Rind-Carrier Based Biofertilizer on the Growth and Yield of Capsicum (Capsicum annuum L.).

The production of living cells or effective microorganisms that aid in the uptake of nutrients for plant growth is referred to as a biofertilizer. In order to successfully commercialize new microbial inoculants, the formulation process is difficult and frequently success-limiting. The success of microbial inoculants is dependent on a number of variables, with carrier material playing the most significant part. The purpose of the experiment was to compare the performance of a corn-rind-carrier based biofertilizer to existing carrier material talc on the growth and production of capsicum using various application methods, including seed treatment, root dipping, and soil application. There are ten treatments with complete randomized design (CRD) design. The treatment having soil application of corn rind carrier based biofertilizer + 100% NPK had the highest beneficial microbial populations including free living N2 fixers, PSB and KSB (49.0, 31.0, 30.66 ×105cfu g-1, respectively). Further, it had increased levels of nutrients soil viz., nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. Greater biometric data including plant height and leaf count, yield characteristics like fruit yield per plant (1591.86) and fruit number (18). Hence, it leads to a conclusion that soil application of corn rind-carrier based biofertilizer + 100% NPK is comparable with soil application of talc carrier based biofertilizer + 100% NPK based on microbiological, nutritional, plant, and yield data. The findings of this study showed that corn rind powder can also be an alternate substrate for talc as a carrier material for the production of biofertilizers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]