Exopolysaccharide-Producing Plant Growth-Promoting Rhizobacteria Under Salinity Condition

Salt-tolerant plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) can play an important role in alleviating soil salinity stress during plant growth and bacterial exopolysaccharide (EPS) can also help to mitigate salinity stress by reducing the content of Na+ available for plant uptake. In this study, native bacterial strains of wheat rhizosphere in soils of Varanasi, India, were screened to identify the EPS-producing salt-tolerant rhizobacteria with plant growth-promoting traits. The various rhizobacteria strains were isolated and identified using 16S rDNA sequencing. The plant growth-promoting effect of inoculation of seedlings with these bacterial strains was evaluated under soil salinity conditions in a pot experiment. Eleven bacterial strains which initially showed tolerance up to 80 g L−1 NaCl also exhibited an EPS-producing potential. The results suggested that the isolated bacterial strains demonstrated some of the plant growth-promoting traits such as phosphate solubilizing ability and production of auxin, proline, reducing sugars, and total soluble sugars. Furthermore, the inoculated wheat plants had an increased biomass compared to the un-inoculated plants.