Article

In an environmentally benign way, plant growth-promoting endophytic bacteria hold great potential as a substitute for chemical fertilizers in terms of enhancing plant growth and output. In the current study, four endophytic bacteria (IIRR-F1, IIRR-F2, IIRR-F3 and IIRR-F4) were isolated from the rice roots and evaluated for a variety of PGP characteristics. Most of the isolates produced plant growth-promoting traits including indole acetic acid, phosphate solubilization, ammonia and siderophore production. It was concluded from the results that bacterial isolate IIRR-F2 showed most of the plant growth promoting traits. Under greenhouse circumstances, rice seeds treated with endophytic bacteria IIRR-F2 enhanced root length, shoot length, and dry weight in comparison to the control group. Based on morphological and biochemical characteristics, bacterial isolate IIRR-F2 was identified as Bacillus sp. These results strongly imply that the plant growth promoting endophytic bacteria identified in this work may be useful for the development of efficient bio-fertilizers/bio-inoculants to increase rice productivity and growth in a sustainable way.