Impact of methane-utilizing bacteria on rice yield, inorganic fertilizers efficiency and methane emissions

Abstract

Methane (CH4) is one of the greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change. Lowland rice cultivation is one of the main sources of methane emissions, accounting for around 5 to 19% of total global CH4. One of the efforts to reduce CH4 gas emissions that is environmentally friendly is through methane-utilizing bacteria. This study aimed to determine the effect of methane-utilizing bacteria on rice yield and methane emissions. The bacterial strains used were Mycobacterium senegalense LM1, Providencia stuartii LM18, Rhizobium rhizoryzae BMU, and Bacillus methylotrophicus N2P4. The research was conducted in the experimental field of The Indonesian Center for Rice Research, Bogor, Indonesia. The experiment was carried out by using a factorial randomized block design with two factors and three replications. The first factor was the dose of NPK inorganic fertilizer (50%, 75%, 100%). The second factor was bacterial consortium formulas (without bacteria, bacterial consortium 1, bacterial consortium 2). The application of a bacterial consortium containing all strains increased the efficiency of inorganic fertilizers by 25%, increased rice production by 33.55%, and reduced CH4 emissions by 37.26%. It seems that the consortium of methane-utilizing bacteria has the prospect of biofertilizer and mitigation agents to mitigate the impact of global warming.