[The significance of exometabolites in the formation and operation of the soybean-rhizobium symbiosis].

The effect of various inoculates of the soybean-specific strain of nodule bacteria Bradyrhizobium japonicum 634b (unwashed cells, cells washed from the exopolysaccharide-protein complex, and cells combined with the complex) on the formation and operation of soybean-rhizobium symbiosis. It was shown that addition of the exopolysaccharide-protein complex doubled the ability of the microsymbiont to form nodules, nodule weight, and the nitrogenase activity of the nodules. Bradyrhizobium japonicum 634b cells washed from exometabolites had lower indices of symbiotic activity than their intact counterparts.