A Study on the Diversity of Pesticide-Resistant Bacterial Population from Different Agricultural Fields of Manjoor

Abstract

The regular usage of pesticides in agricultural fields results in the development of a pesticide-resistant microbial population. Vegetable cultivation is a common practice in the agricultural growing areas of Manjoor, Kerala. The present study was envisaged to understand the resistance of microorganisms to different types and doses of pesticides. The study revealed that heterotrophic bacteria are capable of resisting lower concentrations (0.01 and 0.001%) of the pesticides lindane and methyl parathion while a higher concentration of carbaryl (0.1%) could also be tolerated. In the soil sample where there was no prior addition of pesticides, the heterotrophic bacteria could only tolerate very low concentrations of pesticides The results of mean pesticide-resistant bacterial load when compared to normal Total Heterotrophic Bacteria (THB) of soils indicate that pesticides exhibited an inhibitory effect on the heterotrophic bacteria of soils collected from different agricultural fields and the pesticide-resistant bacterial load was lower than normal THB.

Keywords

• pesticides, heterotrophic bacteria, pestice-resistant bacteria, diversity