MITIGATION OF SALT STRESS IN WHEAT PLANT (Triticum aestivum) BY PLANT GROWTH PROMOTING RHIZOBACTERIA FOR ACC DEAMINASE

Muhammad Arshadullah^1*, Syed Ishtiaq Hyder¹, Imdad Ali Mahmood¹, Tariq Sultan¹ and Sadiq Naveed²

¹Land Resources Research Institute, National Agricultural Research Centre, Park Road, Islamabad-45500, Pakistan.

²Department of Soil Science, Bhauddin Zakariya University, Multan, Punjab, Pakistan.

Accepted July 30, 2017

Wheat (Triticum aestivum) is the essential diet of population as it constitutes 60% of the daily diet of common man in Pakistan. Salinity is a barrier towards growing a sustainable food production system and environment management. PGPR (Plant Growth Promoting Rhizobacteria) under salt stressed conditions causes 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate (ACC) deaminase action which minimizes the intensity of ACC and endogenous ethylene justifying the toxic effects of salt stress on plant growth. The plants inoculated with PGPR having ACC deaminase are relatively more tolerant to salt stress. The study was conducted at National Agriculture Research Centre, Islamabad to examine the consequence of PGPR on wheat crop under saline environment to see that bacterial strains having ACC deaminase had significant effect on wheat growth and ionic concentration. The design was completely randominzed with three repeats. Wheat seeds were inoculated with rhizobacterial strains which were: WPR-51, WPR-61, WM-4, WM- and WPS-8. Salinity (9.68 dS m-1) was artificially developed using salts. Growth of wheat plants performed better under saline environment as inoculated with different rhizobial strains due to the production of ethylene under stressed conditions. Reduction in sodium uptake in plants with the inoculation of different rhizobial strains to wheat seed under saline environment is a positive sign to mitigate salt stress biologically.

Key words: Wheat growth, Salinity, Ethylene, Rhizobial strains, Salt tolerance.

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