Evaluation of potential PGPRs for physiological stress management in chickpea Cicer arietinum L

Abstract

newline The present study confirmed that out of thirty one isolates collected from chickpea newlinerhizoshpere, three isolates PR10, PR30, PR31 found to be potential and identified on the newlinebasis of 16S rRNA under accession number KP966499 for the strain PR31 as Bacillus newlinesubtilis.PR30 strain as Bacillus subtilus under accession number KP966505 andPR10 as newlineEnterobacter cloacae under accession numberKP226575and deposited in Gen-Bank newlinesequence database.The current investigation was conducted during 2019-2020 and 2020- newline2021 at Department of Molecular Biology and Genetic Engineering, Rashtrasant Tukdoji newlineMaharaj Nagpur University (RTMNU), Nagpur, Maharashtra to assess the biological and newlinemolecular characterization of bacteria and their biochemical traits of PGPR under in newlinevitroand also to evaluate the physiological and biochemical effects of PGPR with biocontrol newlineactivity against Rhizoctonia bataticola under in vivo conditions in chickpea KWR-108 newlinegenotype under drought.During in vitro conditions,these strains were resulted to be newlineantagonistic against R. bataicola with 65.75% of higher zone inhibition observed in PR30 newlinestrain exhibiting high biocontrol activity. The other biochemical traits like protease newline(and#956;g/ml),siderophore(and#956;g/ml) and lytic enzymes like chitin(U/ml), cellulase (U/ml) that is newlineresponsible for breakdown of fungal cell wall. Whereas during in vivo conditions, the newlinesynergistic effects of PGPR as single and consortium treatments T9 (B+C) with E. cloacae and newlineB. subtilis in this study ameliorated drought effects by reducing the degradation of newlinechlorophyll (mg/g), proline (µg/g), RWC (%) by improving water balance and osmoregulation newlineby acting as osmoprotectant also physiologically through transpiration rate(mmol H2O mand#8722;2 newlines and#8722;1 ), stomatal desnity (mm²) and stomatal conductance (mmol H2O mand#8722;2 s and#8722;1 ) helps in newlinemaintaining high water status for better chlorophyll and thus leading to improve yield in newlinechickpea. Likewise by increased carotenoid (µg/g) content assisted in declining singlet newlineoxygen and can even hel