Soil salinity is one of the limiting factors of agricultural production in arid and semi-arid areas that reduces yields and optimal crop production. Awareness of rhizosphere bacterial diversity and use of salinity-resistant bacteria is considered as a critical strategy to increase plant growth in these areas. This study aimed to determine the population diversity of sugarcane rhizosphere bacteria in saline and non-saline soil and survey some growth-promoting properties. For this purpose, random sampling from the rhizosphere of sugarcane was performed. Bacteria were isolated by culturing serial on nutrient agar medium and were identified based on biochemical assays. The ability of isolates to fix nitrogen, dissolute phosphate and potassium and auxin production was investigated. Finally, the best growthpromoting isolates were identified based on 16S rRNA sequences. Generally, 40 bacteria were isolated from saline and non-saline soil that these strains were mainly from Bacillus, Paenibacillus and Pseudomonas. Salinity had the highest effect on bacterial community structure with the higher diversity of microorganisms in saline soils. Four strains were selected as growth-promoting strains which based on biochemical and phylogenetic analysis were identified asEnterobacter cloacae R13, Enterobacter cloacae R33, Paenibacillus lactis and Pseudomonas sp.

No abstract