2019 ASHS Annual Conference

Farming communities heavily rely on the use of agrochemicals as a routine practice to improve plant production. This has increased concern over the undesirable consequences of chemicals on human health and environment. This has encouraged extensive research to reduce the dependence on agrochemicals and by developing safer and economically viable alternatives. Significant progress has been made to search for reliable and efficient biological agents. However, studies have shown that effective plant colonization by biological agents significantly impact disease suppression and improve plant growth. In recent years, research on antagonistic endophytes that grow inside plants without causing symptoms has has shown their ability to naturally colonize same ecological niches as pathogens and grow rapidly in interstitial spaces of host tissues. These organisms are likely to be effective in suppressing plant pathogens. In this study, isolates of endophytic bacterial were evaluated for control of plant pathogens and for attributes such as production of hydrolytic enzyme, growth promoting compounds and enzymes associated with biological control of phytopathogenic fungi. This study focused on the bacterial endophytes isolated from Cornus florida, Phaseolus vulgaris and Carica papaya which were previously reported to have biological control against diverse fungal pathogens and also promotes plant growth.Our studies confirmed that these bacterial endophytes produce cell wall degrading enzymes and possess diverse plant growth promoting traits such as IAA synthesis, phosphate solubilization, nitrogen fixation produce ammonia and siderophores. Growth promotion by these endophytes may result from combined effects of one or more plant growth promoting traits. Our findings also demonstrated that the endophytes produce volatile compounds that also played significant role in promoting plant growth displayed on both shoot and root growth.