Bacteriological studies on the mineralization of soil organic nitrogen in paddy soils

Abstract

Anaerobes were isolated from both disrupted and undisrupted soil samples incubated under submerged condition. All isolates were divided into 9 groups based on their gram stain and morphological characteristics. Correlation coefficients between the amount of nitrogen mineralized and the number of each group were calculated. A significant correlation was observed only between the amount of nitrogen mineralized and the number of gram positive-rod shaped anaerobic microorganisms (r=0.768 at P=0.05). This result indicates that in this study system, sorne particular anaerobes may play an important role in the mineralization of soil organic nitrogen.