Abstract
Lactic acid producing bacteria are widely used for human health care known to be probiotics in Japan as well as other countries. We have developed an economic cultivation method of Lactobacillus fermentum 403 （LBF） that is commercially applied to raising chicken, pig and prawn without the application of antibiotics, which is called animal probiotics. We have further developed the application of the LBF to cultivation of crops in which we observed the bacteria as a good endophyte helping growth of crops minimizing the application of pesticide. We defined this approach as probiotic environmental agriculture that is a type of scientific organic farming. Our cropping of vegetable, fruit and rice showed good effect in terms of harvest and taste, which hypothesized that the LBF produced plant hormones such as auxin and cytokinin as endopyhte, and stimulated growth as well as increase in sugar content. We successfully analyzed the production of auxin and cytokinin by the LBF using the LC/MS/MS method. The production of auxin and cytokinin depended on temperature of cultivation of the LBF.
