The Effects of Some Microbial Inoculants on Water Relationships and Agronomic Indices of Sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) in a Saline Soil

Shirmardi, M.; Savaghebi Firoozabadi, Gh. R.; Khavazi, K.; Farahbakhsh, M.; Rejali, F.; Sadat, A. V.

The Effects of Some Microbial Inoculants on Water Relationships and Agronomic Indices of Sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) in a Saline Soil

Authors

M. Shirmardi

Gh. R. Savaghebi firoozabadi

K. Khavazi

M. Farahbakhsh

F. Rejali

A. V. Sadat

Abstract

The effect of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and plant growth promoting rhizobacteria, with the ability to produce ACC deaminase enzyme, on water relationships and agronomic indices of sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) cultivars was investigated. The soil used was of an EC equal to 7.6 dS m-1. A greenhouse factorial experiment on the basis of a completely randomized block design with three levels of arbuscular mycorrhizal inoculants ¬(non inoculation¬, inoculation with¬ Glomus etunicatum and G. intradices), four levels of Pseudomonas fluorescens¬ inoculants (non inoculation , inoculation with P. fluorescens strains 4¬,9,12) on two cultivars of sunflower (Euroflor¬ and ¬Master) with four replications per treatment was conducted. Results indicated that treatments significantly (P<0.05) increased Relative Water Content (RWC) of the two cultivars. Single inoculation of P. fluorescens strain12 and Glomus etunicatum as well as co-inoculation of fungi with each one of the bacteria enhanced wet and dry weight of tray in Euroflor cultivar, as compared to control.

Keywords

mycorrhiza fungi

Plant Growth Promoting Rhizobacteria

relative water content

salinity