MICROBIAL HORTICULTURE: UTILIZATION OF Staphylococcus haemolyticus AS PLANT GROWTH PROMOTING RHIZOBACTERIA SOIL DRENCH INOCULUM IN CULTIVATING Solanum melongena (EGGPLANT)

Abstract

With the emergence of COVID -19 in the Philippines, Filipinos have become accustomed to horticulture (Kampman et al., 2021) and used chemical fertilizers to cultivate their own quality crops, but this material has adverse effects on the environment. The emerging solution for this concern is the inoculation of microorganisms to promote plant growth, called microbial horticulture. Staphylococcus haemolyticus is aerobic bacteria discovered to be a plant growth promoting rhizobacteria in soil through gene testing (Bhattacharyya et al., 2020). Thus, this study utilized a laboratory cultured in Blood Agar Plate media (BAP) Staphylococcus haemolyticus as sole microorganism in soil drenching the Solanum melongena (Eggplant) and measure its daily plant growth in height of plant, length and width of leaves to assess its effects on growth and rate, and evaluate its phenotypic characteristics through destructive analysis in comparison to Agrochemically treated and untreated samples. This research concluded that inoculating laboratory cultured Staphylococcus haemolyticus in Solanum melongena (Eggplant) samples haves shown evident growth in its plant height, length, and width of leaves within three (3) weeks of treatment in an uncontrolled environment than Agro Chemically treated, and untreated plants, but the plant phenotypic parameters treated by all the treatments have no significant difference to each other. Thus concluding that Staphylococcus haemolyticus has a significant effect on the plant growth, but has no significant effect on the plant phenotype characteristic of Solanum melongena (Eggplant).