PLANT GROWTH PROMOTING ATTRIBUTES OF DROUGHT TOLERANT ISOLATED RHIZOBACTERIA FROM MAIZE SOIL
Abstract
This study was designed to isolate and characterized plant growth promoting rhizobacteria from maize soil. The samples were collected aseptically and microbial analysis was achieved by serial dilution and pour plating. The isolate was screened for plant growth promoting traits and other test such as drought, pH, and heavy metals tolerance under optimize condition. Bioinoculation was achieved in vitro and in vivo. The bacteria identified was Bacillus cereus. The Rhizobacterium exhibited the positive reaction to indole acetic- acid, Exopolysaccharide and Ammonia production. High IAA activity of 0.90 was achieved at 1 g L-Tryptophan. This cereus shows positive result to the positive enzyme. Copper tolerance of 0.98 was recorded at day 2 at 48 hours of incubation varied bacteria responses to Carbon and Nitrogen sources were recorded. The bioinoculation showed higher yield of total root length, plumule length, seedling weight, Number of root, leave length compared to the control. Average value of Plant length of 34.5 and 36.5 were recorded for washed maize and unwashed maize under field experiment compared with the control. The Antifungal activities of 2.3 cm of Bacillus cereus against Schlerotium rolfsii was recorded compared with the control. The plant growth-promoting attributes and biocontrol efficacy of B. cereus suggest the possible exploration of this bacterium as bioinoculants in enhancing maize growth.
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