Three soil microbes can break down the common garden and farm herbicide pendimethalin, and they can also be used to make tiny silver particles that stop several crop-damaging fungi. One strain, Acinetobacter radioresistens R27, cleared 92.5% of the herbicide in a week.
1
At 125 mg/L pendimethalin, A. radioresistens R27, B. pumilus R25 and S. variabilis R35 degraded 92.5%, 86.0% and 62.0% of the herbicide in 7 days.
2
Silver nanoparticles made by the microbes were mostly spherical with a face-centred cubic crystal structure; those from R27 at 75 mg/L had a zeta potential of -20.5 mV.
3
The nanoparticles showed concentration-dependent antifungal activity against Aspergillus flavus, Alternaria alternata and Fusarium oxysporum.
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