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Significant Developments in Soil Microbiology
There have been several notable contributions made by several scientists in soil microbiology since the beginning of the present century. Omeliansky in 1902 found out that anaerobic soil bacteria degrade cellulose.

Lipman and Brown in 1903 in the U.S.A., studied ammonification of organic nitrogenous substances by soil microorganisms and developed the 'tumbler or beaker' method for studies on different types of transformations in soil.

The work on rhizosphere started in 1904 by the German scientist Hiltner was later continued in the U.S.A. by Starkey in 1929, in Canada by Lochhead in 1940 and Katznelson in 1946, in Australia by Rovira in 1956, in Czechoslovakia by Matcura and associates in 1961 and in other countries including India by several workers. The importance of

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In 1936, Garrett established a school in the U.K. on soil fungi and their ecological classification in relation to the nature of available native substrate. Alexander Fleming in 1929 discovered penicillin which was followed by the discovery of streptomycin by Waksman in 1944.

These findings led to an upsurge in the study of antibiotics in general (as evidenced by large number of antibiotics discovered) and antibiosis in soil in particular.

In recent years, the occurrence and importance of arbuscular endomycorrhizal fungi (Ex. Golmus, Acaulospora) in roots of plants have been repeatedly pointed out. Barbara Mosse at the Rothamsted Experimental Station in England and several other workers in the U.S.A., India and New Zealand have now realized the potential of AM fungi in phosphate mobilization into plants.

The work on microbiological transformations in soil was continued in the forties in Europe at the famous Pasteur Research Institute in Paris by Pochon and his associates.

At the same time, Gerretsen and Mulder were busy in Wageningen on work concerning phosphate mobilization by soil microorganisms and the importance of molybdenum in the nitrogen metabolism of microorganisms.

By about this time, Ruinen in 1956 developed the concept of phyllosphere (the microbiology of leaf surface) from her studies on the leaf surface microflora of Indonesian forest trees.