Research Projects

Organic tea cultivation encompasses ecologically sustainable plantation system with a focus on tea production without chemical pesticides, concentrated fertilizers and using biocontrol agents such as biopesticides and biofertilizers. Driven by consumer’s taste and interest and health consciousness among general public, the demand for organic tea is rising. In our previous research work, a novel bacterial strain having multifarious plant growth promoting (PGP) traits and biosurfactant producing capacity have been isolated from the rhizosphere of citronella plant (Cymbopogon nardus). The in-vitro PGP traits of the strain identified as Bacillus altitudinis MS16 (GenBank Accession no. MG066459) have been evaluated and results revealed that the strain can fix 82.80 ± 0.6 µg N ml-1 in culture media, produce 40.74 ± 0.7 µg ml-1 of Indole Acetic Acid (IAA), release 7.72 ± 0.9 µg ml-1 of insoluble phosphorus (Goswami and Deka, 2020). The strain can secrete hydrolytic enzymes and also possess the capacity to solubilize potassium and zinc. Apart from these, the strain was also found to exhibit robust motility and biofilm forming abilities (Goswami and Deka, 2020). The strain can colonize plant root colonizing efficiently and act strongly against phytopathogens. In the proposed project, the PGP potential of the selected strain will be exploited for tea plant improvement both in nursery and field in terms of its performance evaluation in different locations of tea gardens of Assam ranging in agro-ecological situations. Mass production technique of the biofertilizer will also be carried out. A suitable biofertilizer formulation will be developed for use in production of organic tea.