Isolation of a bacterial degrader of the herbicide bromoxynil from a Saskatchewan soil

Abstract

The microbiological degradation of the herbicide bromoxynil was studied under both in vivo and in vitro conditions. A method of enumerating the number of degraders in soil was demonstrated to contain at least 10⁴ degrader cells per gram soil at field capacity. An unidentified bacterial degrader was isolated from the soil and shown to be capable of degrading bromoxynil in vitro and in vivo. An algal bioassay system was used to monitor the degradation of bromoxynil in the in vivo experiments.