Enhanced emergence and vigor seedling production of rice through growth promoting bacterial inoculation

Abstract

An experiment was conducted at the Soil Microbiology Laboratory, Department of Land Management, University Putra Malaysia, Malaysia to observe the effect of plant growth promoting bacterial inoculation on the enhancement of germination and vigor seedling production of rice. The design of the experiment was completely randomized with five replicates. Seeds were either inoculated by Bradyrhizobium strains UPMR48, UPMR29, Burkhloderia sp. strain SB13, Corynebacterium sp. strains SB35 and SB41 or un-inoculated control or cultural media only. The results pointed out that inoculation significantly influenced the seedling emergence and vigor and seeds inoculated with strain UPMR29 and UPMR48 showed better performance in respect of vigor index. Inoculation of seeds with UPMR29 showed the longest plumule (shoot length). Bacterial inoculation also influenced on the root hair formation where UPMR 48 showed earlier root hair initiation than others. The overall root growth and development were positively influenced by the bacterial inoculation. The results concluded that plant growth promoting bacteria UPMR29 and UPMR48 could be used for vigor seedling production of rice. © 2009 Academic Journals Inc.