Isolation and characterization of plant growth promoting endophytic bacteria from the rhizome of Zingiber officinale

Endophytes, by residing within the specific chemical environment of host plants, form unique group of microorganisms. Microbially unexplored medicinal plants can have diverse and potential microbial association. The rhizome of ginger is very remarkable because of its metabolite richness, but the physiological processes in these tissues and the functional role of associated microorganisms remain totally unexplored. Through the current study, the presence of four different endophytic bacterial strains were identified from ginger rhizome. Among the various isolates, ZoB2 which is identified as Pseudomonas sp. was found to have the ability to produce IAA, ACC deaminase and siderophore. By considering these plant growth promoting properties, ZoB5 can expect to have considerable effect on the growth of ginger.