Inoculation of wheat with pseudomonas: impact on wheat growth and some biological properties of a soil under Cd and salinity stresses

Due to the problems of salinity and heavy metals in agricultural soils, this study was designed to reduce the adverse effect of salinity and cadmium stresses when wheat inoculated with pseudomonas. The experiment was designed as a factorial arrangement with three factors including salinity levels (3 and 10 dS m-1), cadmium concentration (0, 25, and 50 mg kg-1), and Pseudomonas inoculation (inoculated and non-inoculated) in a completely randomized design with three replications. After harvesting, some soil biological properties (soil respiration and soil microbial biomass) and some plant growth were measured. The results showed that basal respiration (14.6 mg CO2 100g-1 day-1), substrate-induced respiration (93.2 mg CO2 100g-1 day-1), soil microbial biomass (13.4 mg 100g-1), dry weights of shoot and root (7.65 and 2.30 mg pot-1 respectively), Ca concentration of shoot and root (3.12 and 5.92 mg kg-1 respectively), and Mg concentration of shoot and root (3.16 and 6.75 mg kg-1 respectively) decreased with increasing the salinity and cadmium concentrations. Inoculation of Pseudomonas encouraged those parameters compared to non-inoculated treatments. Cd concentration of shoot and root (1.63 and 7.13 mg kg-1, respectively) increased with increasing the salinity and cadmium stress but inoculation of Pseudomonas lessened the Cd concentration of shoot and root. Therefore, the negatives effect of saline and Cd stress might be condensed if wheat is inoculated by Pseudomonas.