Evaluation of salt tolerant bacterial consortia on growth of green gram (Vigna radiata) under saline and non-saline conditions
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Date
2021-12
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G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar - 263145 (Uttarakhand)
Abstract
Salinity is one of the most crucial problems for sustainable agriculture which is severely affecting crop growth and decreasing the food production. On the other side, the world's growing population necessitates increased food production. So, there is a need of hours to increase agricultural production from salt affected soils by adopting cost-effective and environment friendly approaches. Use of salt tolerant plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) could be a promising option to enhance the production of crops in salt affected soils and reduce the negative impacts of salt stress in soil. In this regard, the present study was conducted with 7 Plant growth promoting bacteria, which were further rescreened for salt tolerance capacity at different NaCl concentrations. These Plant growth promoting bacteria were capable to tolerate 15-20% of NaCl concentrations. Further, On the basis of biocompatibility assay, 3 Consortia i.e. Consortium1 (SRK14 and MRCII6), Consortium C2 (RRCI5 and SRP9II1) and Consortium C3 (CP17 and CP20) were prepared. All the bacterial isolates and consortia were screened for different plant growth promoting traits such as indole-3- acetic acid (IAA), Siderophore production, K solubilization, P solubilization, Zinc solubilization, Ammonia production, N2 fixation and exopolysaccharide production. Based on these results, bacterial consortia showed better PGPs traits as compare to single bacterial isolates. Therefore further selected for towel paper assay and pot experiment on green gram (Vigna radiata var. PM9) under saline and non-saline conditions. In paper towel assay, a significant enhancement of root length, shoot length, standard germination, first count, plant fresh weight, dry weight, seedling vigour index I, seedling vigour index II, relative growth index, germination value, mean daily germination and peak value were recorded in plants inoculated with bacterial consortia under both saline and non saline conditions over uninoculated plants. Similarly, in pot trial assay, at elevated concentrations of NaCl, the adverse effects on plant height, no. of nodules, chlorophyll content, carotenoid content, no. of pods per plant, no. of seeds per pod, 100 grains weight along with yield attributing characteristics were recorded in uninoculated (only NaCl) plants. However, in similar conditions inoculation of bacterial consortia showed positive adaption and improve growth performance of green gram compared to uninoculated. Hence, the results suggested that plant inoculated with Consortium 1(SRK14 and MRCII6) under non saline conditions and under saline conditions Consortium C3 (CP17 and CP20) showed better results over uninoculated control. Therefore, Consortium C1 (SRK14 and MRCII6) under non saline conditions is a potential consortium for promoting plant growth attributes in green gram and Consortium C3 (CP17 and CP20) under saline conditions is a potential salt tolerant consortium to mitigate the deleterious effects of salinity in green gram.