Influence of growth promoting bacteria on growth and physiological traits of pistachio in saline soils

Pistachio is a strategic product and have a special place in agicultural production and constitute the bulk of non-oil exports. One of the most important problems in Iranian pistachio areas is soil salinity, which causes many nutritional problems for pistachio trees.

In this study, the effect of plant gowth promoting bacteria (Pseudomonas putida R8 and P. fluorescens R153 isolates) on pistachio cultivars including Badami Zarand, Akbari and Ahmad Ahaghi were studied in a saline soil as a factorial experiment in a completely randomized design. The studied characters included fresh and dry weights of shoots and shoots, leaf area and number, relative water content (RWC) chlorophyll and carotenoid content.

The results indicated that the use of gowth promoting bacteria (R8 and R115 isolates) increased the amount of gowth indices including fresh and dry weights of stems and roots, as well as leaf area and number. R8 isolate caused an increase in root and shoot root weight of 74% and 54% in Badami cultivar, respectively. The leaf area and leaf number characters increased by 81% and 30% in the treatment of R8 gowth promoting bacteria in Badami cultivar. Relative leaf water content (RWC), proline content, total chlorophyll, a and b, and carotenoids were also improved by the use of gowth promoters, especially R8 P. putida. The treatment of R8 bacteria in Badami cultivar was able to increase the absorption of potassium and phosphorus elements by 35% (leaf), 43% (root), 61% (leaf) and 53% (root)

The results of this study indicated that the application of bacteria gowth promoters to the release of effective compounds in plant gowth can increase the gowth and physiological indices even in plants that are in salinity stress.