Isolation and identification of phytate-degrading bacteria and their contribution to phytate mineralization in soil

To better understand the phosphorus (P) cycling in an agricultural soil environment, amounts of total, organic and inorganic P in 10 agricultural soil samples were analyzed. Since a large proportion (57.8%) of the total P in the soils was in organic form, a method was developed to evaluate the mineralization rate of organic P in the soil by adding phytate to the soil and analyzing the change in water-soluble P (WSP) content after incubating it for 3 days. Moreover, the relationship between the phytate mineralization activity and bacterial biomass in 60 agricultural soils was also investigated, where the phytate mineralization activity ranged from 0 to 61.7% (average: 18.8%), and the R² value between phytate mineralization activity and indigenous bacterial biomass was 0.11 only. Phytate-degrading bacteria were isolated from the soil environment, and identified as Pseudomonas rhodesiae JT29, JT32, JT33, JT34, JT35, Pseudomonas sp. JT30, and Flavobacterium johnsoniae JT31. When P. rhodesiae JT29 and F. johnsoniae JT31 were inoculated into the agricultural soils, the phytate mineralization activities were increased up to 16 and 27 times, respectively. It was concluded that promotion of effective phytate-degrading bacterial strains could improve the sustainable P management in the agricultural soils.