In this 21st century Microbiology is emerging as the key biological science as it has a paramount range of application in agriculture and industrial science that yields more economic returns and sounds more wealthy and green. Microbiology is therefore taught to the students all over the world. Agricultural and Industrial Microbiology is taught as one of the important subject to the undergraduate and postgraduate students in Agricultural universities under their usual curriculum. Therefore, in order to benefit the students, this book is written to discuss the basics of microorganisms and give insight coverage of the various aspects of Agricultural and Industrial Microbiology.
The preliminary chapters (Chapters 1 to 11) deal with the general basics of Microbiology like historical development; bacterial morphology and classification; nutrition, growth, control and metabolism of microorganisms. Chapters 12 to 19 cover broadly the basic and applied aspects of Soil Microbiology. For instance, describes microbial interactions, nutrient transformations in soil and biofertilizers.
In the next chapters 20 and 21, a concept of fermentation is introduced along with its history. The chapter 22 briefly explains the types of fermentation. Chapters 23 to 32 discuss the application of microbes in industries to get valuable economic products of high utility like fermented foods, alcoholic beverages, antibiotics, etc. In chapter 32 and 34, we discuss the miscellaneous roles of microorganisms in biofuel production and purification of potable water.
The subject matter in this textbook is basic and more information is presented pertaining to ‘Agricultural and Industrial Microbiology’.
Dr. K. Kumutha has undergraduated in Agriculture in the year 1988 at Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore. She completed her post graduation in Agricultural Microbiology under the guidance of Dr. P. Santhanakrisnan (Former Registrar of TNAU) during 1990 and doctoral in Agri. Microbiology in the year 2001 under the guidance of Dr. S.P. Sundaram, Professor and Head, Dept. of Agri. Microbiology in the same university. She is a recipient of ICAR Junior Research Fellowship for the Post graduate programme. She has also received Best Women Scientist award for the year 2005. Best Teacher Award of TNAU for the year 2006 and the state level NSS programme officer award for the year 2005. She has got 15 years of teaching and 16 years of Research experience and currently working as Associate Professor in the Dept. of Agri. Microbiology, TNAU, Coimbatore. For her credentials, she has published more than 25 research articles in both National and International Journals and guided four post graduate students. She participated in 26 symposium / conference / workshops and presented research papers. She visited the University of South Australia, Adelidae. Her research areas are mainly on basic and applied aspects of bioinoculants especially Arbuscular Mycorrhiza, Pseudomonas and Rhizobium and also biochar.
Dr. K.G. Anitha received a bachelor’s degree in Agriculture from Annamalai University in 1995. She has completed her post graduation in Microbiology at Tamil Nadu Agricultural University under the guidance of the renowned Microbiologist Dr. S. Kannaiyan during 1996-98 and Doctoral degree under the guidance of Dr. M. Thangaraju, Professor & Former Director (Students’ Welfare), TNAU during 1999-2001. She is a recipient of G. Rangaswami award for the best Ph.D. thesis in Agricultural Microbiology in 2002. She has also received Junior Research Fellowship in EEC project during 1997-98 for M.Sc. programme and Senior Research Fellowship in NATP project during 2000-2002 for Ph.D. programme. She is enriched with 6 years of research experience and 5 years of teaching experience in the same University. At present serving as Assistant Professor in Anbil Dharmalingam Agricultural College & Research Institute, Trichy which is one among the campuses of TNAU. She has published more than 10 research articles in both international and national journals. The author is also having wide revelation to research works by attending 6 symposium/conference and 4 workshops. Her research has dealt almost exclusively with endophytic diazotrophs, bioinoculants and recently biosensors.
Ms. K. Saranya completed her bachelor degree in Agriculture at Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore in 2009. Recently, she has completed her master’s in Agricultural Microbiology at the Dept. of Agri. Microbiology, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore under the guidance of Dr. K. Kumutha, Associate Professor, Dept. of Agri. Microbiology in the same university. She hold’s an OGPA of 9.40 in her master’s. Her research work mainly deals with the quality standardization of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal inoculant. She has also worked with Dr. P. Santhanakrishnan, (Former Registrar of TNAU) in a foreign agencies project along with Dr. K. Kumutha for 6 months in 2011 related to the use of biochar as an alternate carrier to lignite for the preparation of biofertilizers in India. She has published 3 research articles and 2 review articles in International Journals. She has participated in 2 national conferences and presented her research paper and was awarded the Best Presenter Award of DAMES’11 conference.
