Potential of mineral-solubilizing bacteria for physiology and growth promotion of Chenopodium quinoa Willd

Ejaz Rafique, Muhammad Zahid Mumtaz, Inam Ullah, Aneela Rehman, Kamal Ahmad Qureshi, Muhammad Kamran, Mujaddad Ur Rehman, Mariusz Jaremko, Muneefah Abdullah Alenezi

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

11 Scopus citations

Abstract

Nutrient deficiency in wild plant species, including quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa Willd), can be overcome by applying mineral-solubilizing bacteria. Quinoa is a gluten-free, nutritious food crop with unique protein content. The present study aimed to characterize mineral-solubilizing rhizobacterial strains and to evaluate their plant growth-promoting potential in quinoa seedlings. More than sixty rhizobacterial strains were isolated from the quinoa rhizosphere and found eighteen strains to be strong phosphate solubilizers. Most of these bacterial strains showed zinc solubilization, and more than 80% of strains could solubilize manganese. The selected strains were identified as Bacillus altitudinis Cq-3, Pseudomonas flexibilis Cq-32, Bacillus pumilus Cq-35, Pseudomonas furukawaii Cq-40, Pontibacter lucknowensis Cq-48, and Ensifer sp. Cq-51 through 16S rRNA partial gene sequencing. Mainly, these strains showed the production of organic acids, including malic, gluconic, tartaric, ascorbic, lactic, and oxalic acids in insoluble phosphorus amended broth. All strains showed production of gluconic acids, while half of the strains could produce malic, ascorbic, lactic, and oxalic acids. These strains demonstrated the production of indole-3-acetic acid in the presence as well as in the absence of L-tryptophan. The bacterial strains also demonstrated their ability to promote growth and yield attributes, including shoot length, root length, leave numbers, root and shoot dry biomass, spike length, and spikes numbers of quinoa in pots and field trials. Increased physiological attributes, including relative humidity, quantum flux, diffusive resistance, and transpiration rate, were observed due to inoculation with mineral solubilizing bacterial strains under field conditions. P. lucknowensis Cq-48, followed by P. flexibilis Cq-32, and P. furukawaii Cq-40 showed promising results to promote growth, yield, and physiological attributes. The multi-traits characteristics and plant growth-promoting ability in the tested bacterial strains could provide an opportunity for formulating biofertilizers that could promote wild quinoa growth and physiology.
Original languageEnglish (US)
JournalFrontiers in Plant Science
Volume13
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 10 2022

Bibliographical note

KAUST Repository Item: Exported on 2022-10-12
Acknowledgements: The APC was funded by the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal, Saudi Arabia. The current study is a part of the Ph.D. dissertation of Mr. Ejaz Rafique (the first author) and he would like to express his gratitude to the Microbial Biotechnology Laboratory, Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (IMBB), The University of Lahore (UOL), Pakistan, for providing the working space and research facilities. The authors highly acknowledged the help from Dr. Ahmad Zaheer (Ex. Assistant Professor, IMBB, UOL, Lahore, Pakistan) during the methodology of this work. The authors also thank Prof. Dr. Muhammad Yaseen Ashraf (IMBB, UOL, Lahore, Pakistan) for facilitating the leaf porometer. The authors would like to express their deepest gratitude to University of Tabuk, for the technical support for this study.

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Plant Science

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