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Research article - Peer-reviewed, 2014

Reduced leaching of the herbicide MCPA after bioaugmentation with a formulated and stored Sphingobium sp.

Önneby, Karin; Håkansson, Sebastian; Pizzul, Leticia; Stenström, John

Abstract

The use of pesticides on sandy soils and on many non-agricultural areas entails a potentially high risk of water contamination. This study examined leaching of the herbicide 4-chloro-2-methylphenoxyacetic acid (MCPA) after bioaugmentation in sand with differently formulated and stored Sphingobium sp. T51 and at different soil moisture contents. Dry formulations of Sphingobium sp. T51 were achieved by either freeze drying or fluidised bed drying, with high initial cell viability of 67-85 %. Storage stability of T51 cells was related to formulation excipient/carrier and storage conditions. Bacterial viability in the fluidised bed-dried formulations stored at 25 A degrees C under non-vacuum conditions was poor, with losses of at least 97 % within a month. The freeze-dried formulations could be stored substantially longer, with cell survival rates of 50 %, after 6 months of storage at the same temperature under partial vacuum. Formulated and long-term stored Sphingobium cells maintained their MCPA degradation efficacy and reduced MCPA leaching as efficiently as freshly cultivated cells, by at least 73 % when equal amounts of viable cells were used. The importance of soil moisture for practical field bioaugmentation techniques is discussed.

Keywords

Bacterial pesticide degradation; Column studies; Freeze drying; Fluidised bed drying; Storage conditions; Soil moisture content

Published in

Biodegradation
2014, Volume: 25, number: 2, pages: 291-300
Publisher: SPRINGER

      SLU Authors

        • Sustainable Development Goals

          SDG6 Clean water and sanitation

          UKÄ Subject classification

          Microbiology
          Bioinformatics and Systems Biology

          Publication identifier

          DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10532-013-9660-3

          Permanent link to this page (URI)

          https://res.slu.se/id/publ/53332