Potential of Finger Millet Indigenous Rhizobacterium Pseudomonas sp. MSSRFD41 in Blast Disease Management—Growth Promotion and Compatibility With the Resident Rhizomicrobiome

Abstract

Finger millet [Eleusine coracona (L). Gaertner] “Ragi” is a nutri-cereal with potential health benefits, and is utilized solely for human consumption in semi-arid regions of Asia and Africa. It is highly vulnerable to blast disease caused by Pyricularia grisea, resulting in 50–100% yield loss. Chemical fungicides are used for the management of blast disease, but with great safety concern. Alternatively, bioinoculants are widely used in promoting seedling efficiency, plant biomass, and disease control. Little is known about the impact of introduced indigenous beneficial rhizobacteria on the rhizosphere microbiota and growth promotion in finger millet. Strain MSSRFD41 exhibited a 22.35 mm zone of inhibition against P. grisea, produces antifungal metabolites, siderophores, hydrolytic enzymes, and IAA, and solubilizes phosphate. Environmental SEM analysis indicated the potential of MSSRFD41 to inhibit the growth of P. grisea by affecting cellular functions, which caused deformation in fungal hyphae. Bioprimed finger millet seeds exhibited significantly higher levels of germination, seedling vigor index, and enhanced shoot and root length compared to control seeds. Cross streaking and RAPD analysis showed that MSSRFD41 is compatible with different groups of rhizobacteria and survived in the rhizosphere. In addition, PLFA analysis revealed no significant difference in microbial biomass between the treated and control rhizosphere samples. Field trials showed that MSSRFD41 treatment significantly reduced blast infestation and enhanced plant growth compared to other treatments. A liquid formulated MSSRFD41 product maintained shelf life at an average of 108 CFU ml−1 over 150 days of storage at 25°C. Overall, results from this study demonstrated that Pseudomonas sp. MSSRFD41, an indigenous rhizobacterial strain, is an alternative, effective, and sustainable resource for the management of P. grisea infestation and growth promotion of finger millet.

Intercropping Transplanted Pigeon Pea With Finger Millet: Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi and Plant Growth Promoting Rhizobacteria Boost Yield While Reducing Fertilizer Input

“…In our case the improved finger millet and pigeon pea growth may be primarily due to the choice of AMFpp and AMFfm which were originally isolated from the rhizosphere of pigeon pea and finger millet respectively via screening (Rao et al, 1983a,b;Reddy and Bagyaraj, 1991). Similarly the PGPR strain MSSRFD41 was isolated from finger millet and may have been co-evolved as better symbiont for the host (Sekar et al, 2010(Sekar et al, , 2018. The observed variation in the microbial performance across the sites and years could be attributed to the differences in the soil physio-chemical properties and climate (Supplementary Table 1).…”

Intercropping With Turmeric or Ginger Reduce the Continuous Cropping Obstacles That Affect Pogostemon cablin (Patchouli)

“…Interspecies interactions may affect the abundance of some soil microbial populations, but they do not affect population diversity ( Li et al, 2018 ; Yu et al, 2019 ). Previous research has shown that the above-mentioned dominant bacterial groups participate in soil N and P cycling ( Fierer et al, 2012 ; Zhang et al, 2016 ; Pham et al, 2018 ; Sekar et al, 2018 ), which improves the growth of medicinal plants. Actinomycetes found for ecological sites in the soil or the plant rhizosphere environment directly prevents pathogens from infecting plants, and reduces the number of pathogens through spatial competition and antibiosis ( Samac et al, 2003 ).…”

Kinetics of Phenol Biodegradation by Heavy Metal Tolerant Rhizobacteria Glutamicibacter nicotianae MSSRFPD35 From Distillery Effluent Contaminated Soils

“…The 16S rRNA gene was amplified from the representative isolates of the BOX-PCR cluster groups using universal primers 27F (5′-AGA GTT TGA TCM TGG CTC AG-3′) and 1492R (5′-TAC GGH TAC CTT GTT ACG ACT T-3′) ( Sekar et al, 2018 ). Each 20 μl reaction containing 6 μl of 2X ampliqon red mix, 2 μl of 2.5 pmol 27F and 1492R primers, 2 μl of 50 ng template DNA was made up to 20 μl using double sterilized HPLC water.…”