Science Letters

Plant Growth Promoting Activity of Volatile Organic Compounds Produced by Biocontrol Strains

Waseem Raza 1*, Sohail Yousaf 2, Faheem Uddin Rajer 3

1 College of Resources and Environmental Sciences, Nanjing Agricultural University, 210095, Nanjing, China

2 Department of Environmental Sciences, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan

3 Faculty of Crop Protection, Sindh Agriculture University, Tandojam, Sindh, Pakistan

Abstract

The volatile organic compounds (VOCs) produced by plant growth promoting rhizobacteria have been reported to improve growth and induced systemic resistance in plant against different phytopathogens, which revealed the importance of VOCs in plant-microbe interactions. In this study, we evaluated the effect of VOCs produced by nine different biocontrol strains on the plant growth promotion, chlorophyll content and leaf surface area. The biocontrol strains used in this study were isolated from different sources and showed excellent biocontrol activity against different plant pathogens. The results showed except one biocontrol strain SQR-9, all other biocontrol strains produced VOCs that improved the growth of plants in vitro and enhanced the chlorophyll content and leaf surface area. Among different strain, Pseudomonas fluorescence strain PF-5 showed maximum growth promotion of plants followed by Bacillus amyloliquefaciens strain T-5 and Pseudomonas fluorescence strain Q2-87. The results of this study revealed that importance of VOCs in plant growth promotion and also showed that all biocontrol strains do not produce plant growth promoting VOCs.

Keywords: Biocontrol, leaf surface area, plant growth promotion, volatile organic compounds.

Received August 26, 2015 Accepted October 25, 2015 Abstract Published November 18, 2015 Manuscript Published April 15, 2016

*Corresponding author Waseem Raza Email waseem@njau.edu.cn