Date of Award

2013

Document Type

Honors Thesis

Department

Biology

First Advisor

Robert Zdor

Abstract

If rhizobacteria are to be used for weed biocontrol, a practical means of storing them must be found. In this project I sought to use the natural products exopolysaccharide and hydroxygectoine to improve the survival of Acidovorax delafieldii dry formulated with either an oat flour, maltose, and trehalose formulation or Celite (diatomaceous earth). When formulated with the oat flour, maltose, and trehalose, the expolysaccharide allowed for modest survival after 24 hours of drying. Using Celite, a preferred carrier, hydroxyectoine led to bacterial populations of 6.2 x 10(4) cells / g formulation after 24 hours of drying after 48 hours of cold storage.

Subject Area

Rhizobacteria., Weeds--Biological control, Microbial exopolysaccharides.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.

DOI

https://dx.doi.org/10.32597/honors/76/

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