Isolation and biochemical characterization of Plant Growth Promoting (PGP) bacteria colonizing the rhizosphere of Tef crop during the seedling stage

The use of novel PGPR as bio inoculant is an alternative sustainable agricultural practice to improve soil health, grain quality, increase crop productivity, and conserve biodiversity. The aim of this study is to isolate, and characterized PGP bacteria colonizing tef rhizosphere during the seedling stage. For this concern, 426 samples of tef (Eragrostis tef) rhizosphere soils and roots were collected from East Shewa zone, Oromia regional state. 200 morphologically different bacterial pure colonies were isolated and screened for their PGP traits and biocontrol properties. Among these 40.5% isolates were positive for phosphate solubilization. 36% were positive for IAA production, 4.5% were positive for ammonia production, 19 % were positive for (EXPS), 15.5% were positive for protease production, 12.5% were positive for HCN productions, 9.5 % were positive for cellulase production, 4% were positive for amylase production, 3.5% were positive for chitinase production. For abiotic stress tolerance test, all of the isolates were grown well at 20oc and 30oc and neutral pH, 27% isolates were grown well at 4oc, 25.5% grew at 40oc, 25.5% were grown well on pH-9 and pH-11, 23.5% were tolerated pH-5, 3.5% grew at 50oc and 60oc, 13.5% were grown well on 5% NaCl (w/v), 3.5% were grown well on 10 and 15% NaCl (w/v), which indicated these isolates can survive in some extreme conditions. Totally 15 bacterial species having PGP traits, biocontrol properties, and abiotic stress tolerance ability were identifi ed using the Biolog bacterial identifi cation system. Among these, the majority of the identifi ed PGPR have utilized carbohydrate, carboxylic acid, and amino acid, which are the main components of plant root exudates. The above results indicated that thus PGPR can be used as biofertilizers as well as biocontrol agents to replace agrochemicals to improve crop productivity. Hence, these species can be further formulated and used for greenhouse and fi eld applications. Research Article Isolation and biochemical characterization of Plant Growth Promoting (PGP) bacteria colonizing the rhizosphere of Tef crop during the seedling stage Zerihun Tsegaye*, Birhanu Gizaw, Genene Tefera, Adey Feleke, Solomon Chaniyalew, Tesfaye Alemu and Fasil Assefa Addis Ababa University, Department of Microbial, Cellular and Molecular Biology and Ministry of Innovation and Technology, Ethiopia *Address for Correspondence: Zerihun Tsegaye, Department of Microbial, Cellular and Molecular Biology, Ethiopian Biodiversity Institute, Ethiopia, Tel: 251+936451046; Fax: #0116613722; Email: zerihuntsegaye1970@gmail.com Submitted: 01 February 2019 Approved: 27 March 2019 Published: 28 March 2019 Copyright: © 2019 Tsegaye Z, et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited