National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS)
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PRINT ISSN : 2319-7692
Online ISSN : 2319-7706 Issues : 12 per year Publisher : Excellent Publishers Email : editorijcmas@gmail.com / submit@ijcmas.com Editor-in-chief: Dr.M.Prakash Index Copernicus ICV 2018: 95.39 NAAS RATING 2020: 5.38 |
Among environmental stresses drought is a major limiting factor that adversely affects crop growth and productivity worldwide and its incidence is predicted to increase under climate change. Drought adaptation of rainfed crops is major challenge to secure the agricultural productivity under current and future climate conditions. Plants harbour endophytic bacteria which are non-pathogenic. Endophytes are known to induce tolerance against drought and improve plant’s resistance to drought. In this study, 31 endophytic bacterial isolates were evaluated for their alleviation of water stress in drought susceptible pearl millet (composite-443). In a pot experiment conducted under water stress condition, out of 31 isolates, inoculation with some of the isolates showed positive effect on shoot and root fresh weight and dry weight. The most promising 5 isolates were evaluated for their effect on seed germination and seedling vigour under osmotic stress conditions. It was observed that treatment with isolates MCL-1 and MKS-1 increased fresh weight of inoculated pearl millet seedling as compared to uninoculated control treatment exposed to osmotic stress. Increase in plumule length was observed for isolate MKS-1 and radicle length for both isolates MCL-1 and MKS-1 treated seeds under osmotic stress conditions. Effect of different levels of osmotic stress on the growth of these two isolates was studied using PEG 6000. It was observed that both isolates showed less than 25% reduction in growth in presence of 20% PEG 6000 and there was more than 50% growth reduction in presence of 30% PEG 6000. At still higher concentration of PEG 6000, a drastic reduction in growth was observed. From the present investigation we can conclude that the isolates MCL-1 and MKS-1 show potential for development as bioinoculants for pearl millet for use under water stress conditions.
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