Plant Growth Promoting Activities of Microbacterium phyllosphaerae in Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)

Abstract

A native strain of Microbacterium phyllosphaerae was isolated from agriculture field of Lucknow Uttar Pradesh India and characterized for its plant growth promoting activities, that is, indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) production, phosphate solubilization activities, ammonia and siderophore production. The isolated rhizobacteria was identified and characterized using 16S rRNA sequencing and applied to soil in earthen pots sown with wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). A significant increase in the root length, shoot length, fresh weight, dry weight, length of spikelet and grain weight were observed in the plants grown with M. phyllosphaerae in earthen pots as compared with the plants grown without the seed priming. The results indicate that application of M. phyllosphaerae as a biofertilizer produced more biomass and enhanced grain weight per plant of wheat by 61% over control. Further studies are going on to evaluate the field performance of this native soil microbe as biofertilizer for the cultivation of wheat in north Indian agroclimatic conditions.