ASSESSMENT OF PLANT GROWTH PROMOTING ATTRIBUTES OF COTTON (Gossypium hirsutum) RHIZOSPHERE ISOLATES AND THEIR POTENTIAL AS BIO-INOCULANTS

Development of effective Plant Growth Promoting bio-inoculants necessitates the presence of a diverse set of traits which can help in its colonization in the rhizosphere and survival under varying environmental conditions. In our investigation, a set of 91 bacterial isolates from the rhizosphere of cotton plant were screened preliminarily on the basis of seed germination and 32 bacterial isolates were selected. These isolates were then tested in vitro for specific PGPR traits, like production of ammonia and Phosphate solubilisation. Among all the isolates, many isolates were found to show many of the plant growth promoting attributes. Characterization of these isolates was done on the basis of morphology. These bacterial cultures can prove to be effective bio- inoculants as they possess a number of traits useful for their establishment and proliferation in soil.