Microbial Degradation of Methyl Parathion by a Soil Bacterial Isolate and Consortium

Pesticide consumption causes, pollution of groundwater, surface water and soil.Its use is increasing at an alarming rate, for increasingthe agricultural yield. Their extensive use exerts profound and deleterious effects on wildlife populations and humans. Methyl parathion(MP) is one such pesticide which is widely used throughout the world to protect the crops from chewing and sucking insects such as aphids, boll weevils and mites, this pesticide is highly toxic and its residues remain in the environment .The present study was thus aimed to isolate a soil bacteria by enrichment technique capable of degrading the concerned pesticide thereby reducing its toxicity by utilizing it as a source of carbon and energy .A total 10 strains were isolated from the soil, of these ,only one strain was found to be potential , which was identified as Achromobactersp C1 andwas used for further studies. The degradation of MP was studied spectrophotometrically by the test strain C1 and consortium and it was found that they both, degraded MP by the formation para nitro phenol(PNP).