Characterization of plant growth-promoting rhizobacterial isolates associated with food plants in South Africa

The region around the plant root referred to as the rhizosphere, is the zone where various microbial activity occurs. It performs crucial functions such as increasing the uptake of nutrients for plant development and preventing plant against plant pathogens. Keeping in mind the beneficial role performed by rhizospheric microorganisms, rhizobacterial species were isolated from the maize and soybean plant's rhizosphere. The isolated microorganisms were evaluated for their biochemical characteristics, plant growth-promoting potentials, tolerance to different environmental conditions, and their antifungal activity against Fusarium graminearum, a fungal pathogen that infects maize. The rhizobacterial isolates with multiple plant growth-promoting potentials were identified as Bacillus spp (80.77%), Rhodocyclaceae bacterium (3.85%), Enterococcus spp (3.85%). Massilia spp (3.85%. and Pseudomonas (7.69%) species based on their 16S rRNA molecular characterization. The bacterial isolates possessed antifungal activities against Fusarium graminearum, promote maize and soybeans seed under laboratory conditions, and exhibited different levels of tolerance to pH, temperature, salt, and heavy metal. Based on this, the whole genome sequencing of Bacillus sp. OA1, Pseudomonas rhizosphaerea OA2, and Pseudomonas sp. OA3 was performed using Miseq Illumina system to determine the functional genes and secondary metabolites responsible for their plant growth-promoting potential Thus, the result of this research revealed that the selected bacterial isolates possess plant growth-promoting potentials that can make them a potential candidate to be employed as microbial inoculants for protecting plants against phytopathogens, environmental stress and increasing plant growth and productivity.