ABSTRACT

Plants are known to be associated with varied community of microorganisms. Endophytic bacteria are the group of plant growth promoting bacteria that have the ability to survive inside the plant tissues by establishing a symbiotic relationship with the plant. As there are only few reports on the use of plant growth promoting endophytic bacteria on growth of foxtail millet , the research was carried to isolate and characterize the endophytic bacteria from the roots of different millet and to study their inoculation effect on growth of foxtail millet with two levels of recommended dose of fertilizers. Total of eighty endophytic bacteria were isolated from the roots of different millet crops collected from the regions of Haveri district. All the isolates were subjected for biochemical characterization and are screened for plant growth promoting traits. Three isolates ACDEPM 7, ACDEF 15 and ACDELM 1 were selected as efficient endobacterial isolates based on their multifunctional plant growth promoting activities such as in vitro nitrogen fixation, solubilization of phosphorus, potassium, zinc and production of siderophore and indole-3-acetic acid (IAA). Based on their compatibility test the microbial consortium was prepared and are used for pot culture experiment. The results of pot culture studies showed that the plants inoculated with microbial consortium significantly increased the plant growth parameters like plant height, relative chlorophyll content, total dry weight, root parameters and nutrient uptake of foxtail millet plants over uninoculated control. Hence, the present study concludes that the application of these efficient endobacterial isolates significantly enhanced the growth parameters of the foxtail millet plants over uninoculated plants at 100% RDF and the consortium of these efficient endobacterial isolates showed superior plant growth compared to the inoculation of individual isolates with 100% RDF.