Ten grams of herbal vermicompost from each sample were
separately suspended in 90 ml of physiological saline (0.85% of
NaCl) in a flask and placed on an orbital shaker (at 100 rpm) at room
temperature (28 2 C) for 1 h. At the end of shaking, the vermicompost
samples were serially diluted up to 106 dilutions with
physiological saline. Dilutions 104106 were plated on starch casein
agar (SCA) by spread plate technique and incubated at 28 2 C for
four days. The most prominent colonies (the ones which were
found abundantly in the plate, produced pigments and inhibited
the adjacent colonies) were isolated and maintained on SCA slants
at 4 C for further studies