Phenotypic grouping of Brazilian Bradyrhizobium strains which nodulate soybean

Abstract

Several years of research have shown that there is a high genetic and physiological variability among Bradyrhizobium japonicum strains, culminating in a subdivision into two bacterial genotypes, and the description of the new species B. elkanii. In Brazil, large-scale soybean inoculation started in 1960 and today 15 million doses of inoculants are sold per year for an estimated area of 12 million ha. Efforts have been made to find strains able to fix high amounts of N₂ under Brazilian soil conditions, but few laboratories cover basic studies on N₂ fixation, such as strain classification into the two Bradyrhizobium species. In this study several characteristics of 40 soybean Bradyrhizobium strains, including 4 reference strains of B. japonicum (genotype I) species, 3 of B. elkanii (genotype II) and 1 of a mixed genotype were evaluated. The parameters analysed in vitro were: colony morphology, serological grouping, intrinsic resistance to antibiotics, synthesis of indole acetic acid, expression of hydrogenase activity and growth in a medium enriched with asparagine. In vivo, analyses performed included the nodulation of Rj ₄ soybean cultivar Hill and the detection of symptoms caused by rhizobitoxine. These evaluations allowed a phenotypic grouping which positioned most of the strains utilized in Brazilian inoculants and studies, as well as some new strains isolated from the Cerrado region, within the species B. elkanii. However, environmental stresses and adaptation of Bradyrhizobium strains to the soil caused a large physiological and genetic variability in some isolates from the Cerrado soils in relation to the putative parental strain introduced 15 years ago, placing these isolates in an intermediate position between the two Bradyrhizobium species.