Background
Indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) is produced by microorganisms and plants via either tryptophan-dependent or tryptophan-independent pathways. Herein, we investigated the optimisation of IAA production by
Streptomyces fradiae
NKZ-259 and its formulation as a plant growth promoter to improve economic and agricultural development.
Results
The maximum IAA yield achieved using optimal conditions was 82.363 μg/mL in the presence of 2 g/L tryptophan after 6 days of incubation. Thin-layer chromatography (TLC) and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) analysis of putative IAA revealed an RF value of 0.69 and a retention time of 11.842 min, comparable with the IAA standard. Regarding product formulation, kaolin-based powder achieved a suspension rate of 73.74% and a wetting time of 80 s. This carrier exhibited good shelf life stability for NKZ-259, and the cell population did not decrease obviously over 4 months of storage at 4 °C. In vivo analysis of plant growth promotion showed that tomato seedlings treated with kaolin powder containing NKZ-259 cells displayed a significant increase in root and shoot length of 7.97 cm and 32.77 cm, respectively, and an increase in fresh weight and dry weight of 6.72 g and 1.34 g. Compared to controls, plant growth parameters were increased almost it two-fold.
Conclusion
Optimising the culture conditions resulted in an almost four-fold increase in IAA secretion by NKZ-259 cells. The results clearly demonstrate that
S. fradiae
NKZ-259 holds great potential for plant growth promotion and IAA production. Furthermore, kaolin-based powder is an effective carrier for NKZ-259 cells and may be useful for commercial applications.
Electronic supplementary material
The online version of this article (10.1186/s12866-019-1528-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Chemical pesticides are widely used in agriculture, which endangers both environmental health and food safety. Biocontrol is an environmentally-friendly and cost-effective green technique in environmental protection and agricultural production; it generally uses selected bioresources, including beneficial microorganisms. We isolated a novel bacterial strain (NKG-1) from the rare dormant volcanic soils of Changbai Mountain in China’s Jilin Province. The strain was identified as Bacillus methylotrophicus using morphological, biochemical, physiological, and phylogenetic 16S rDNA sequencing data. This strain was able to suppress mycelial growth and conidial germination of numerous plant pathogenic fungi on solid media. A greenhouse experiment showed that application of NKG-1 fermentation broth prior to inoculation of Botrytis cinerea, the cause of gray tomato mold, inhibited growth of the mold by 60%. Furthermore, application of a 100× dilution of NKG-1 fermentation broth to tomato seedlings yielded a significant increase in seedling fresh weight (27.4%), seedling length (12.5%), and root length (57.7%) compared to the control. When the same dosage was applied in the field, we observed increases in tomato plant height (14.7%), stem diameter (12.7%), crown width (16.3%), and maximum fruit diameter (11.5%). These results suggest that NKG-1 has potential commercial application as a biofertilizer or biocontrol agent.
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