Nodulation response of woody Papilionoid species after inoculation with rhizobia and soil from Hawaii, Asia and North America

Among subfamilies in the Fabaceae, the capacity to form root nodules is most common in the Papilionoideae. Yet nodules have never been observed on species of Cladrastis, and there are conflicting reports of the capacity of species in the genus Styphnolobium to nodulate. Our objectives were to evaluate Styphnolobium japonicum (formerly Sophora japonica) and Cladrastis kentukea for the capacity to nodulate and to characterize any isolated rhizobia. N-deficient plants were inoculated with rhizobia chosen for their low host specificity or for their symbiotic potential with indigenous and introduced trees and shrubs of Sophora species in Hawaii, Japan and China. Soil samples from the root zones of mature S. japonicum, C. kentukea and other woody legumes, introduced or indigenous to Hawaii, Japan, China and the continental USA, also were used as inocula. Inoculation did not elicit nodulation of C. kentukea or S. japonicum, despite that N concentrations of shoots of S. japonicum (1.6%) and G kentukea (1.5%) fell below the highest shoot N percentage that previously was associated with well-nodulated plants of Maackia amurensis (1.8%). In addition to these analyses, rhizobia were isolated from nodules on the roots of a tree reported to us as S. japonicum. Nine of the 10 isolates selected as representatives of similarity groups were capable of nodulating M. amurensis, which led to the identification of the putative S. japonicum as Maackia floribunda. We also found that broad-range Bradyrhizobium USDA 6, USDA 3384 and USDA 3456 induce nodules on R. pseudoacacia and M. amurensis, which were used as control species during inoculation trials with S. japonicum and G kentukea. Our conclusion that S. japonicum and C. kentukea lack the capacity to nodulate is based on the most thorough analysis of the nodulation capacity of these species to date. Previous reports of nodulation of S. japonicum may have been due to inaccurate plant or nodule identification.