Effect of Methylotrophic Bacteria in Seedling Development of Some Crops under Gnotobiotic study

Healthy seedling generation is the major concern in overcoming adverse effects of biotic and abiotic stresses during tender stage of development in vegetables and horticultural crops. Because of this, priority is given to research leading to the generation of healthy seedlings in crops subjected to transplanting and bedding. In this study, growth pouch experiments were conducted to determine the effect of inoculation of six different strains of Methylobacterium sp. namely, M. oryzae CBMB20, M. phyllosphaerae CBMB27, M. suomiense CBMB120, and Methylobacterium strains CBMB12, CBMB15 and CBMB17 on the seedling development of the vegetable crops cabbage, Chinese cabbage and cucumber; and horticultural crops tomato and red pepper. Crops treated with the test strains enerally showed higher seedling dry matte accumulation compared to the control. Significantly higher accumulation was exhibited by CBMB12, CBMB17, and CBMB20 in cabbage, as well as for CBMB27 and CBMB120 on tomato and Chinese cabbage, respectively. Furthermore, all the strains promoted root elongation in cucumber and tomato seedlings while in Chinese cabbage and red pepper, root elongation was observed with CBMB120 and CBMB12 inoculation, respectively. Large scale nursery study is needed to develop a thorough protocol for healthy seedling development with the use of these strains. KCI Citation Count: 1