Factors which influence toxicity of legume seed disinfectants towards biologicals based on symbiotic nitrogen fixers

Symbiotic nitrogen fixers of Rhizobiaceae family serve as biologicals for agriculture. This is due to the fact that free-living inoculants which are not crop-specific possess much less nitrogen-fixing ability than the legume-rhizobial symbiosis of a plant and its species-specific symbiont. Despite this, the seedbed inoculation and a wider use of biopreparations of nodule bacteria in legumes are hampered by a number of objective deficiencies of such preparations, for example, the relatively low resistance of rhizobia to adverse environmental factors. These factors include direct contact of bacteria with aggressive substances, i.e. chemical fungicides used for seed treatment. This paper is the first to report that the rhizobia survival rate depends on the temperature of tank solutions and may differ under the effect of disinfectants based on the same active ingredient. That is, methods of disinfectant manufacture significantly affect its toxicity towards nodule bacteria...