Use of spermosphere model for the screening of wheat cultivars and N2-fixing bacteria for N2 fixation
The spermosphere model showed very high seedling-to-seedling variation in the ability to induce acetylene-reducing activity in bacteria associated with wheat roots. Several seedlings failed to induce nitrogenase in N2-flxing strains of Bacillus and Azospirillum brasilense. Increasing the concentration of yeast extract or the inoculum density, adding NaOH solution in the side arm of Pankhurst tubes to absorb CO2, and vernalizing the seeds did not increase the percentage of nitrogenase-positive tubes and did not decrease variation in acetylene-reducing activity. Increasing the incubation temperature from 25 to 27 °C induced nitrogenase in Bacillus, but not in Azospirillum strains; at 30 °C nitrogenase was also induced in Azospirillum strains. It appears that the spermosphere model is not a practical technique for screening nitrogenase induction by wheat, unless the use of genetic lines of unimpeachable uniformity can provide control of variability.