The growth response of Acacia mangium Wilid. to inoculation with selected Bradyrhizobium strains was investigated in two field trials in the Ivory Coast (West Africa). In the first trial (Anguededou), four provenances (i.e., trees originating from seeds harvested in different geographical areas) of A. mangium were inoculated with four Bradyrhizobium strains from different origins. Six months after being transplanted in the field, the heights of all inoculated trees showed a statistically

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... cant increase of 9 to 26% compared with those of uninoculated trees, with the most effective strain being Aust 13c. After 19 months, the positive effect of inoculation on tree growth was confirmed. The effect of A. mangium provenance on tree growth was also highly significant. Trees from the Oriomo provenance of Papua New Guinea had a mean height that was 25% greater than those of other provenances. Analysis of variance showed a highly significant effect of interaction between strain and host provenance factors. Thus, most effective strain x provenance combinations could be proposed. Immunological identification of strains clearly showed that 90 to 100% of nodules from trees inoculated with three of the four Bradyrhizobium strains or from uninoculated trees contained exclusively Aust 13c 23 months after tree transplantation. This predominance of Aust 13c in nodules was still observed 42 months after tree transplantation. The second experiment (Port-Bouet), performed with a different soil, confirmed the long-term positive effect of Aust 13c on plant growth, its high competitive ability against indigenous strains, and its persistence in soil. Strain Aust 13c should thus be of great interest for inoculating A. mangium under a wide range of field conditions. Acacia mangium is a legume tree of the humid tropics renowned for its very fast growth, even in depleted soils. A. mangium is often spontaneously nodulated by rhizobia in its native area and in soils where it has been introduced. To achieve maximal growth when introduced in N-deficient soils, it is recommended that A. mangium be inoculated with specific and effective strains of rhizobium, although it nodulates readily with indigenous strains of rhizobium,(10). Short-term nursery experiments performed by showed that the inoculation of A. mangiumt with certain strains of rhizobium had a positive effect on tree biomass (expressed as total N) in nonsterile soils (Annam clay soils in the Philippines), but the authors did not specify if the effective strains belonged to the Rhizobium group or the Bradyrhizobium group. In 1990, Galiana et al. (8) showed that only a restricted range of Bradyrhizobium strains were able to produce effective nodules on A. mangium and that A. mangium was a specific host since the effectiveness of these different strains varied considerably. However, these results were obtained under laboratory