Enhancement of Seed Germination and Seedling Vigour in Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) by Native Microbial Consortia

Abstract

Several biocontrol agents are being employed as one of the alternative methods to chemical measures in agricultural system to manage plant diseases as well as promoting, plant growth and development.Various studies have shown that combination of two or more beneficial microorganisms can have synergistic effect. The present The present study was conducted in 2019 at Department of Plant Pathology, SASRD, Nagaland University to check out the efficacy of indigenous compatible microbial consortia on plant growth promoting activities like seed germination, seedling vigour index, shoot length, root length, fresh and dry weight of shoot and roots by standard filter paper method Three microbial consortia were prepared using native isolates of Trichoderma and Pseudomonas fluorescens.T1[ (P. fluorescens P-7 + Trichoderma sp. T-5 + Trichoderma sp. T-11), T2 (P.fluorescens P-12 + Trichoderma sp. T-5 + Trichoderma sp. T-11), T3 (P. fluorescens P-7 + P.fluorescens P-12+Trichoderma sp. T-5 + Trichoderma sp. T-11. The experiment was conducted in completely randomized design (CRD) and five replications were maintained for each treatment.The result showed that, T3 significantly increased vigour index of tomato seedlings (93.24 %), including germination per cent (20.84 %), shoot length (61%) and root length (59.36 %) over control at 10 DAS. On the basis of findings, all the tested microbial consortia had significantly promoted the plant growth over control where T3was the best among the tested microbial consortia exhibiting plant growth promoting potential for commercial exploitation.