An essential macronutrient for plant growth and crop productivity is phosphorus (P). However, maximum portion of phosphorous in mineral soils is associated with Al and Fe oxides or hydroxide in soils of low pH and is unusable. Hence, in order to help plants fulfill their ideal nutritional needs for development and to maintain the sustainability of the soil, phosphorus is added to the soil as fertilizer. But this fertilizer overuse exacerbates soil degradation issues, lower agricultural output, pollutes the environment, degrades water quality, and destroys biodiversity. Thus as an alternative, phosphate solubilizing bacteria (PSB) possessing the ability to solubilize this immobilized phosphate and can serve as biofertilizer are focused nowadays. In current study, an effort was made to isolate and screen these microbes. Eight bacterial isolates forming solubilization zone ranging in size from 5.0mm to 15.6mm on pikovskaya agar plates and having solubilization indices of 5.16 to 3.79 were recovered from soils of Jaipur. The isolates were subjected to biochemical test and were identified as Pseudomonas, Bacillus, Pantoe and Enterobacter sp. Thus, these strains can be further exploited as biofertilizer, which can be a boost for agrarian community.

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Keywords: Biofertilzer, Halo Zone, Phorphorus Solubilizing Bacteria, Bioinocula.