PJB-2023-1573
Impact of plant growth promoting rhizobacteria biofertilzers on biochemical attributes, antioxidant activities, nutritional values and productivity of maize
Amjid Khan, Rashid Abbas Khan, Muhammad Ali and Zabta Khan Shinwari
Abstract
The quest for enhancing agricultural yields due to increased pressure on food production has inevitably led to the indiscriminate use of chemical fertilizers and other agrochemicals. The potential role of plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) as a biofertilizer evolved as appropriate substitute to neutralize adverse environmental impacts wielded by manmade agrochemicals. The recent study was conducted to elucidate the role of plant growth promoting rhizobacteria as biofertilizer. Maize seeds were treated with PGPR (Azotobacter chroococum & Planomicrobium chinense) and in combination to observe the effects on physiology, hormonal activity, antioxidant enzymes, nutritional composition, and productivity. The study revealed that application of PGPRs and biofertilizer significantly (p<0.05) improved the physio-biochemical attributes including root length (222%), shoot length (85.1%), proline (%), phenolics (71%), flavonoids (85%) and protein (94%) as compared to control. The hormonal activity and plant-defense related antioxidant enzymes activities also improved leading to improve the yield, the observed increased in grain yield (81%) with 100 grain weight 25.37%. The application of PGPR resulted in increased soil fertility, maximum increase in soil organic matter (26.74%), total nitrogen (33.10%), available phosphorus (99.17%) and available potassium (48.55%). Similarly maximum increase in nitrogen was 54.4%, phosphorus 54.5%, potassium 34.72%, magnesium 78%, was observed. The present study clearly signifies that the use of biofertilizers and bioinoculants for sustainable yield production of maize is environment friendly and can used as alternative of the chemical fertilizers
To Cite this article:
Khan, A., R.A. Khan, M. Ali and Z.K. Shinwari. 2023. Impact of plant growth promoting rhizobacteria biofertilzers on biochemical attributes, antioxidant activities, nutritional values and productivity of maize. Pak. J. Bot., 55(6): DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.30848/PJB2023-6(33)
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