Structural and functional diversity of Rhizobacteria of Pearl Millet in Semi-arid Agroclimatic Zone

A study was carried out to examine the structural and functional diversity of rhizobacteria associated with pearl millet cultivated in semi arid agroclimatic zone, district Faridabad, Haryana, India. Twenty two rhizospheric soil samples of pearl millet plants were randomly collected, from seven different villages of district Faridabad and rhizobacteria were isolated from them using spread plate technique, on three different nutrient media. A total of sixty two isolates were obtained out of which 27.4 percent isolates have been identified as belonging to genus Streptomyces, 22.5 percent to genus Pseudomonas, 16 percent to genus Flavobacterium, 13 percent to genus Streptococcus, 14.5 percent to genus Bacillus and 6.5 percent to genus Staphylococcus on the basis of their morphological and biochemical characteristics. Various diversity indices were calculated for the bacterial population, obtained. The Simpson index (D) was 0.81, Shannon-Wiener index was 1.71 and equitability was 0.95. More than sixty nine percent of the isolates were found to produce indole acetic acid (IAA), 41.9 percent were phosphate solubilizers, 71 percent produced hydrogen cyanide and 82.3 percent produced ammonia under in-vitro conditions. Average production of IAA was observed as 1.73μg/ml and the average phosphate solubilization index obtained was 2.24. Maximum plant growth promoting potential was exhibited by genus Pseudomonas while isolates belonging to genus Streptomyces and genus Staphylococcus showed minimal potential for the same.

Author(s): Pratibha Prashar*, Neera Kapoor, Sarita Sachdeva

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