Screening and molecular identification of monocrotophos degrading bacterial isolates.

Abstract

The unregulated use of organophosphate group of pesticides leads to severe pollution of the soil, water and food chain due to its long term persistent nature. Monocrotophos is one of the majorly used pesticides of this group. The use of microorganisms is one of the best ways to degrade the monocrotophos. The soil samples were gathered from various agricultural fields located in Haryana for this research. The different bacterial strains were isolated from these soil samples using enrichment method. The degradation of the pesticide was confirmed using HPLC analysis. Among all these strains three bacterial strains namely, Bacillus weidmannii (HR-29), Bacillus subtilis (HR-100), and Microbacterium sacchrophilum (HR-112) were further explored for their degradation capability on the HPLC. The results revealed that HR-29 and HR-100 demonstrated almost similar degradation up to 73.14 % and 73.43% whereas, 69.11% degradation was showed by HR-112.