RHIZOBACTERIA HAVING ACC-DEAMINASE AND BIOGAS SLURRY CAN MITIGATE SALINITY ADVERSE EFFECTS IN WHEAT

Salinity is a major hurdle to the sustainable production of crops at the world scale. It elevates the level of ethylene in plants that causes poor root growth and development thus resulting in low yield. Inoculation of rhizobacteria having ACC deaminase (ACCD) is an effective technique to regularize the endogenous ethylene generated via salinity induced stress. On the other hand, biogas slurry (BGS) is also well known for its plant-growth-promoting role, even in stressful conditions. Therefore, the present field trials were conducted to explore the individual and combined treatment effects of rhizobacteria and BGS on wheat under salinity stress. There were three ACC deminase rhizobacteria i.e., Lysinibacillus fusiformis, Bacillus cereus and Alcaligenes faecalis inoculated with and without BGS (as 600 kg ha(-1)) on physiological, growth and yield indices of wheat under salinity stress. The results showed that the B. cereus+BGS significantly improved plant height (17 and 35%), number of tillers plant(-1) (46.2 and 57.9%), 1000-grain weight (34 and 33%), grain (46 and 50%) and straw (37 and 37%) yield over control under salinity stress in study 1 and 2, respectively. A significant decrease (24 and 29%) in electrolyte leakage also validated the effectiveness of B. cereus and B. cereus+BGS over control in the experiments 1 and 2, respectively, under salinity stress. Relative water content were also enhanced (36 and 27%) with B. cereus+BGS over control in the study 1 and 2, respectively. It is conclusively stated that the combined use of B. cereus+BGS is an efficacious treatment to alleviate the adverse effects of salinity in wheat.