Abstract—Silver oak belongs to the family Proteaceae, native of Australia but is found abundantly in India. It is used as timber, wind breakers, shade tree, as stake for the climbers and making Cricket bats. Realizing these importance and demand for the production of quality planting stock, a green house experiment was conducted at College of Forestry, Ponnampet, Karnataka, India, to evaluate the performance of microbial inoculants viz., Trichoderma, P-solubilizer and Nfixer for growth promoting activity of Silver oak. The experiment was conducted in Completely Randomized Design with ten treatments and three replications. Height, girth and total number of leaves of the plants were recorded at 30, 60, 90 and 120 days after transplanting. The growth of the plants was significantly different between the treatments in all the growth stages for different parameters studied except for number of leaves. The leaves number decreased in later stages i.e. 120 days after transplanting. This may be due to the abiotic factors like Temperature, RH etc. This study suggests that the potting mixture has to be provided with bioinoculants viz, Trichoderma, P-solubilizers and if necessary the Nitrogen fixers based on the nutrient status of the potting mixture and the plant requirement.

Index Terms—P solubilizer, N Fixer, Silver oak, Trichoderma.

N. Umashankar was earlier working at College of Forestry, Ponnampet, Karnataka state, India. Now he is working as an assistant professor at Agricultural College, Hassan 573 225, a constituent College of University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore, Karnataka state, India (e-mail: umashankarn@rediffmail.com).
P. Venkateshamurthy is with the Department of Horticulture, College of Agricuture, Mandya which is a constituent college of University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore, Karnataka state, India (e-mail: pvenkateshamurthy@gmail.com).
R. Krishnamurty is with the Department of Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry, College of Agriculture, Bangalore, Karnataka state, India (e-mail: srkmurthyssac@gmail.com).
H. R. Raveendra is with the Department of Plant Pathology, Zonal Agricultural Research Station, Mandya, which is a constituent Research Station of University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore, Karnataka state, India (e-mail: ravi.hr.agri@gmail.com).
K. M. Satish is with the Department of Biotechnology, Agricultural College, Bangalore, Karnataka state, India (e-mail: satgar79@gmail.com).

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Cite: N. Umashankar, P. Venkateshamurthy, R. Krishnamurthy, H. R. Raveendra, and K. M. SatishI, "Effect of Microbial Inoculants on the Growth of Silver Oak (Grevillea robusta) in Nursery Condition," International Journal of Environmental Science and Development vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 72-76, 2012.