Isolation and Characterization of Bacillus sp. with Their Effect on Growth of Tomato Seedlings Chauhan Anjali, Guleria Shiwani, Walia Abhishek1, Mahajan Rishi, Verma Seema, Shirkot CK* Department of Basic Science, Dr YS Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, Nauni, Solan-173230, HP, India 1DNA Unit (Biology Division), Forensic Science Laboratory, Rohini, Sector-14, New Delhi, India *Author for correspondence: Email: profckshirkot@gmail.com
Online published on 16 January, 2015. Abstract The use of plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) is steadily increasing in agriculture and offers an attractive way to replace chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and supplements. In search of efficient PGPR with multifarious traits, thirty bacterial strains were isolated from tomato rhizosphere of District Solan, Himachal Pradesh using modified replica plating technique. The isolates were screened in vitro for their plant growth promoting (PGP) activities. Five isolates, with a score greater than sixty per cent, exhibiting multiple activities, were evaluated quantitatively for PGP traits. All the five isolates with multifarious PGP activities were selected for net house studies. Among them, three isolates i.e. CKT1, CKT4 and CKT5 showed growth promotional effects and other two isolates i.e CKT2 and CKT3 were found to have detrimental effects on plant growth. Phylogenetic analysis has confirmed that five isolates though showing similarity to Bacillus subtilis yet were clustered as two different groups, thus highlighting their strain level differences. Multiple regression analysis, carried out to estimate the overall impact of PGP activities (Phosphate solubilization, Indole acidic acid and siderophore production) on morphological characters viz. root length and dry weight, shoot length and dry weight was resulted in highly significant r2 values. Top Keywords Plant growth promoting rhizobacteria, 16S rDNA sequence, Bacillus sp, endophytes, tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.). Top |