DEVELOPMENT OF PSEUDOMONAS FLUORESCENS AND BACILLUS COAGULANS BASED BIOFORMULATIONS USING ORGANIC AND INORGANIC CARRIERS AND EVALUATION OF THEIR INFLUENCE ON GROWTH PARAMETERS OF SUGAR BEET

Abstract

ABSTRACT Use of plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) can play important roles in developing sustainable systems for crop production. In search for efficient PGPR strains with multiple activities, we prepared eight bioformulations (BF) using two isolates of Pseudomonas fluorescens (B1) and Bacillus coagulans (B2) which were isolated from rhizospheric soil and plant roots in Iranian sugar beet fields. Carriers included talc and bentonite powders as inorganic carriers and peat and rice bran as organic carriers for increasing stability in interaction between associated PGPR and sugar beet plants. The efficacy of prepared bioformulations were then evaluated on promoting sugar beet seedlings growth characteristics including seedling height, seedling dry weight, seedling dry weight, root length and root weight, 60 days after sowing. Results indicated that above-mentioned growth characteristics except root length were significantly increased by all test BF but with different ratio. However, in the case of root length, 5 out of 8 BF (Peat-b1, Talc-b1, Talc-b2, R.B.-b1 and R.B.-b2) showed significant effectiveness in increasing seedling root length. The overall results of this study show that it may be possible to use PGPR based BF for promoting the health and growth of sugar beet.