Isolation and characterization of plant growth-promoting endophytic bacteria of wild legumes growing on sandy soils of Binh Thuan province, Vietnam

Abstract

The roots of two legume species (Tephrosia purpurea and Tephrosia villosa) that grew wild on dry sandy soils of Binh Thuan province were sources for isolating plant growth-promoting endophytic bacteria. Semi-solid LGI medium was used for the isolation of nitrogen-fixing bacteria from root extracts. All bacterial isolates isolates were evaluated for their ability to solubilize calcium orthophosphate on solid NBRIP medium and their ability to produce IAA in Burk's liquid medium supplemented with 100 mg/L tryptophan. The possibilities of nitrogen fixation, phosphate solubilization and IAA synthesis were all quantitative examined by colorimetric method. Twenty-two bacterial isolates of T. purpurea and 18 isolates of T. villosa were capable of nitrogen fixation in the range of 1.94 to 2.81 mg/L NH4+, whereas only 18 isolates of T. purpurea and 16 isolates of T. villosa showed phosphate solubilization in the range of 12.30 – 48.90 mg/L P2O5, and IAA production in the range of 0.38 – 12.72 mg/L. Sixteen outstanding bacterial isolates of the two legume species were identified by MALDI-TOF technique. The results showed that 13 isolates had high similarity with five bacterial genera including Klebsiella, Cronobacter, Enterobacter, Burkholderia, and Bacillus with score values in the range of 2.070 – 2.411.