ABSTRACT
Aims: Food security and safety are current issues around the world. Rice is a staple food for a large portion of the world’s population, and in Malaysia around 2.2 million tonnes of rice were consumed annually. Fertilizer input is the key to increase rice production. Malaysian Nuclear Agency (Nuclear Malaysia) has developed multifunctional biofertilizer products in an effort to reduce dependency on chemical fertilizers for crop production. Methodology and results: Multifunctional biofertilizer products contain indigenous microorganisms that have desired characteristics, which include plant growth promoting, phosphate solubilising, potassium solubilising and enhancing N2- fixing activity were used in this study. These products were formulated as liquid inoculants, which is suitable for rice production. A greenhouse trial was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of multifunctional biofertilizer on rice. Multifunctional biofertilizer products were applied singly and in combination with rock phosphate, feldspar and irradiated oligochitosan from a project by Forum for Nuclear Cooperation in Asia (FNCA), Japan. Plants that were given chemical fertilizers and plants not receiving fertilizer or biofertilizer products were used as controls. Fresh and dry weights of rice seedlings were determined. Application of multifunctional biofertilizer combined with irradiated oligochitosan (T3) resulted in significantly higher fresh weights (97.12 g) and dry weights (84.16 g) as compared to non-treated plants (77.39 g fresh weights and 69.56 g dry weights). The results suggested that application of multifunctional biofertilizer in combination with irradiated oligochitosan could increase rice growth. Conclusion, significance and impact of study: Combination of biofertilizer with oligochitosan increased rice growth in greenhouse trial. Further investigation of this interaction phenomenon should be carried out.