Effect of Seed Inoculation with Pseudomonas fluorescence and Glomus esculentum on Quantitative and Qualitative Yield ofTwo Forage Corn Cultivars

In order to investigate the effect of Pseudomonas fluorescence strain 93 bacteria and Glomus esculentum fungus on quantitative and qualitative yield of two forage corn cultivars, an RCBD based factorial field experiment with three replications was conducted at the Agricultural Research Station of the University of Guilan in 2008. Treatments were considered as phosphorus chemical fertilizer, seed inoculation with Glomus esculentum mycorrhiza fungus, seed inoculation with Pseudomonas fluorescence strain 93 bacteria, seed inoculation with Pseudomonas fluorescence strain 93 bacteria and Glomus esculentum mycorrhiza fungus, and two corn cultivars (SC704 and SC647). No application of chemical fertilizer and microorganisms was considered as control. Results of ANOVA showed that plant height and leaf area, plant SPAD value, and plant biological yield were affected by cultivar × fertilizer interaction, significantly. The highest plant height (249.30 cm), SPAD value (52.30), and biological yield (251.51 g/plant) were related to cultivar SC704 which treated with chemical phosphorous fertilizer or inoculated with bacteria-fungus combination. The maximum plant leaf area was achieved in chemical phosphorous fertilizer followed by application of both bacteria and fungus treatments. Inoculation with both bacteria and fungus also resulted to highest dry matter digestibility (77.37 %) and crude protein (12.61 %). However, the highest (54.41 %) and lowest (34.38 %) crude fiber was related to control and bacteria-fungus combination treatments, respectively. Among two cultivars used in the experiment, SC704 was superior according to examine crop traits. Therefore, it could be expected that inoculating the seeds of SC704 corn cultivar with Pseudomonas fluorescence- Glomus esculentum combination resulted to reduce the use of phosphorus fertilizers and increase in the quality and quantity of forage corn.