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The combined inoculation of two or more microbial species, such as phosphate-solubilizing bacteria (PSB) and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus (AMF) and PSB and nitrogen fixers, has often been reported to exert positive effect on growth and yield of various crops; however, reports on dual inoculation of PSB and free-living phosphate-solubilizing fungi (PSF) are hardly available, which makes this study relevant. P-solubilization efficiency (SE) was highest for Bacillus sp.; SE values for RM-2 were highest on the 2 nd day of inoculation, whereas those for Aspergillus niger S-36 continuously increased up to the 5 th day of incubation. We performed an experiment to evaluate the co-inoculation effect of two phosphate-solubilization-efficient strains of bacteria and fungi in a pot trial. RM-2 strain produced chitinase that might have conferred biocontrol properties on chickpea. The overall growth of plants via dual inoculation was significantly (P = 0.05) greater than that for control and single inoculations in a pot trial, indicating the positive synergistic effect of co-inoculation of PSB and PSF for crop improvement, which could be useful for farmers and sustainable agriculture.

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Pathogenesis-related (PR) proteins are induced in response to pathogen attack. In the present study, the induction of PR proteins in response to the fungal pathogen Macrophomina phaseolina was investigated in 15-day-and 1-month-old plants of Vigna aconitifolia with resistant and susceptible cultivars. Inoculation of the fungal pathogen resulted in the enzyme activity gradually increased throughout the experimental period of 168 h compared to control. However, the activation of β-1,3-glucanase and chitinase was more rapid and to a greater extent in the resistant FMM-96 cultivar as compared to susceptible RM0-40 and CZM-3 cultivars. Furthermore, the western blot analysis revealed the presence of 33-and 30-kDa bands of β-1,3-glucanase and chitinase in induced moth bean plants, respectively. The possible implications of these findings as part of the general defense response of moth bean plants against the fungal pathogen (M. phaseolina) have been discussed.