INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON BIG DATA APPLICATIONS IN AGRICULTURE (ICBAA2017) 5-6 DECEMBER 2017 157 ICBAA2017-24 EFFECT OF MICROBIAL FORMULATION USING PHOSPHATE SOLUBILIZING BACTERIA ON THE FRESH WEIGHT OF COCOA SEEDLINGS AND LEAF NUTRIENTS Mohd Yusoff Abd Samad 1* , Raja Noor Zaliha Raja Abd Rahman 2 , Abu Bakar Salleh 2 , Mahiran Basri 3 and Zulkefly Sulaiman 1 1 Faculty of Agriculture, UPM 2 Faculty of Biomolecular and Biotechnology, UPM 3 Faculty of Science, UPM myusoffas@upm.edu.my INTRODUCTION Development of bioinoculant formulation requires evaluation on the effectiveness of the formulation on the crops. The efficacy of formulation using phosphate-solubilizing bacteria has to be evaluated to prove that the formulation has the functionality when applied to soils for phosphorus uptake by the plants. Evaluation of bioinoculant formulation is always carried out either in field trial or pot trial in greenhouse or growth chamber under controlled conditions which the formulation is applied to the soils planted with tested crop (Esitken et al., 2003; Han and Lee, 2005; Emine et al., 2006; Hameeda et al., 2008; Patel et al., 2008; Linu et al., 2009; Mishra et al., 2011; Dastager et al., 2010; Castagno et al., 2011). Successful formulation of bioinoculant can be proven by the significant growth of crop parameters such as fresh biomass, root, stem, leaf and yield due to the ability of formulation of bioinoculant, which can add, fix, mobilize or solubilize the nutrients in the form which can be easily and quickly absorbed by plants. Besides, bioinoculant formulations can be considered effective on their applications when they are capable of multiplying in soil rhizosphere and benefiting the growing crops. Furthermore, application of the formulation when the soil conditions are favorable, the added bacterial populations are built up in the rhizosphere of plants. They are also able to function in mobilizing nutrients to the crops. In this case, they are capable of solubilizing insoluble phosphate and make it available to the crops. Normally, the successful formulation benefits the crops by increasing up to 20% of germination, improved seedling emergence and growth, increase yield from 10 to 40%, improves the quality of fruit, saving of 25 to 35% inorganic fertilizer, increase the availability and uptake of N and P in plants. Other benefits that formulation can work properly when the population of beneficial microorganisms in the soil increase nutrient retention and availability and leads to improve yield and growth, improve nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizer efficiency. It is safe to handle and easy to apply, leaves no harmful residues in plants or soil. The efficiency of formulation can also be noted when they can suppress detrimental and pathogenic soil microorganism, ability to decompose waste matter and produce organic manure. They are also compatible with organic manures, fertilizers, agrochemicals non-polluting and environmentally friendly. The capability of producing plant growth promoting substances is also one of the features of an efficient formulation. Application of bioinoculants from a wide range of bacterial genera of the PSB demonstrated significant increase in the growth of many crops such as raspberry (Emine et al., 2006), eggplant (Han and Lee, 2005), sugarcane