Potassium Solubilizing Bacteria Ability to Increase Wheat Growth and Potassium uptake under in vitro Condition

Potassium (K) is the third major essential macronutrient for plant growth. Without adequate potassium, the plants will have poorly developed roots, grow slowly, produce small seeds and have lower yields. Due to imbalanced fertilizer application, potassium deficiency is becoming one of the major constraints in crop production. The concentrations of soluble potassium in the soil are usually very low and more than 90% of potassium in the soil exists in the form of insoluble rocks and silicate minerals. Soil microbes have been reported to play a key role in the natural K cycle and therefore, potassium solubilizing microorganisms present in the soil could provide an alternative technology to make potassium available for uptake by plants. Thus, identification of microbial strains capable of solubilizing potassium minerals quickly can conserve our existing resources and avoid environmental pollution hazards caused by heavy application of chemical fertilizers.
This study aimed to isolate and identified potassium solubilizing bacteria and evaluate those effect on K availability from muscovite and vermiculite sources to wheat crop under in vitro condition. The study was conducted as factorial in completely randomized design at three replications included bacterium inoculation (control, isolate1, isolate 2) and four k sources (muscovite, vermiculite, muscovite K2HPO4, vermiculite K2HPO4). Bacterial isolates were obtained from wheat rhizosphere on modified Aleksandrov medium containing muscovite and vermiculite powder as potassium source. Nutrient broth medium was used to prepare an overnight culture of bacteria to inoculate in Aleksandrov medium, which was used to study the dissolution of silicate minerals. The zone of solubilization recorded on Aleksandrov medium. Then the ability of two bacterial strains, including Bacillus subtilis and Corynebacterium glutamicum to release mineral K from muscovite and vermiculite was investigated. After 18 days of seed culture, aerial part of plant growth was dry digested and K concentration was determined by flame photometry. Dry and fresh weight of aerial part and root, plant height and root length was recorded.
Three K-solubilizing isolates from 15 isolates identified by biochemical and molecular methods which belonged to Bacillus subtilis, Pseudomonas putida and Corynebacterium glutamicum. The potassium solubilization zone of each strain on Aleksandrov medium containing muscovite were 8.1, 65.1 and 6.3, respectively. The zone was also 9, 8 and 5.8 in Aleksandrov medium in the presence of vermiculite as insoluble potassium source. According to these results potassium release from vermiculite was more than muscovite, in spite of more potassium content of muscovite. According to the obtained results two strains Bacillus subtilis and Corynebacterium glutamicum were selected for in vitro experiment because of halo to colony diameter ratio. The ratio of halo to colony diameter in the presence of muscovite for Bacillus subtilis, Pseudomonas putida and Corynebacterium glutamicum was 1.5, 0.72 and1.3, respectively. These ratios were 2, 1.4 and 0.8, respectively in the medium containing vermiculite as insoluble potassium source. The results showed that the effect of bacteria inoculation was significant (p