Assesment of postential PGPRs with biocontrol against Fusarium oxysporum and mitigating physiological stress management of chickpea

Abstract

The present study confirmed that out of thirty one isolates collected from chickpea rhizoshpere, newlinethree isolates PR10, PR30, PR31 found to be potential and identified on the basis of 16S rRNA under newlineaccession number KP966499 for the strain PR31 as Bacillus subtilis.PR30 strain as Bacillus subtilus newlineunder accession number KP966505 andPR10 as Enterobacter cloacae under accession newlinenumberKP226575and deposited in Gen-Bank sequence database.The current investigation was newlineconducted during 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 at Department of Molecular Biology and Genetic newlineEngineering, Rashtrasant Tukdoji Maharaj Nagpur University (RTMNU), Nagpur, Maharashtra to newlineassess the biological and molecular characterization of bacteria and their biochemical traits of PGPR newlineunder in vitroand also to evaluate the physiological and biochemical effects of PGPR with biocontrol newlineactivity against Rhizoctonia bataticola under in vivo conditions in chickpea KWR-108 genotype under newlinedrought.During in vitro conditions,these strains were resulted to be antagonistic against R. bataicola newlinewith 65.75% of higher zone inhibition observed in PR30 strain exhibiting high biocontrol activity. The newlineother biochemical traits like protease (and#956;g/ml),siderophore(and#956;g/ml) and lytic enzymes like newlinechitin(U/ml), cellulase (U/ml) that isresponsible for breakdown of fungal cell wall. Whereas during in newlinevivo conditions, the synergistic effects of PGPR as single and consortium treatments T9 (B+C) with E. newlinecloacae and B. 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 by newlineacting as osmoprotectant also physiologically through transpiration rate(mmol H2O mand#8722;2 s and#8722;1 ), newlinestomatal desnity (mm²) and stomatal conductance (mmol H2O mand#8722;2 s and#8722;1 ) helps in maintaining high newlinewater status for better chlorophyll and thus leading to improve yield in chickpea. Likewise by newlineincreased carotenoid (µg/g) content assisted in declining singlet oxygen and can even helps in newlinemaintainin