article · Physiologia Plantarum
Salt stress presents a major challenge to agriculture, particularly in dry environments affected by climate change. Researchers isolated native bacteria from the roots of wild salt-tolerant plants across three saline, semi-arid sites in Tunisia to assess their plant growth-promoting properties. The three most effective strains were applied to quinoa seedlings grown under high salinity conditions of 300 millimolar sodium chloride. These strains were identified through molecular testing as belonging to the species Bacillus inaquosorum, Bacillus thuringiensis, and Bacillus proteolyticus. Inoculation with these bacteria showed a clear positive impact on the stressed plants. It significantly enhanced overall biomass production, primary root length, the number of secondary roots, proline levels, and photosynthetic performance. The findings demonstrate that native rhizobacteria from halophytic soils can effectively mitigate salt stress and improve the growth of quinoa cultivated in saline environments.
Saline soils severely restrict crop yields in arid and semi-arid regions. By using naturally occurring, salt-tolerant bacteria to protect quinoa from salt stress, this approach offers an eco-friendly biological strategy. It helps cultivate resilient food crops in degraded environments without relying on chemical inputs, supporting food production in areas threatened by changing climates.
This research could inform the development of microbial biofertilisers or seed inoculants for agricultural producers growing quinoa in saline soils. Potential end users include farming enterprises and agricultural input manufacturers operating in arid, salt-affected regions. The work represents applied laboratory-stage research that has been tested on seedlings, indicating further field trials and formulation development would be necessary before real-world commercial deployment.
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The use of plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) in agriculture is one of the most promising approaches to improve plants' growth under salt stress and to support sustainable agriculture under climate change. In this context, our goal was to grow and enhance quinoa growth using native rhizobacteria that can withstand salt stress. To achieve this objective, we isolated rhizobacteria from three saline localities in a semi-arid region in Tunisia, which are characterized by different halophyte species and tested their plant growth-promoting (PGP) activities. Then, we inoculated quinoa seedlings cultivated on 300 mM NaCl with the three most efficient rhizobacteria. A positive effect of the three-salt tolerant rhizobacteria on the growth of quinoa under salinity was observed. In fact, the results of principal component analysis indicated that the inoculation of quinoa by salt-tolerant PGPR under high salinity had a prominent beneficial effect on various growth and physiological parameters of stressed plant, such as the biomass production, the roots length, the secondary roots number, proline content and photosynthesis activities. Three rhizobacteria were utilized in this investigation, and the molecular identification revealed that strain 1 is related to the Bacillus inaquosorum species, strain 2 to Bacillus thuringiensis species and strain 3 to Bacillus proteolyticus species. We can conclude that the saline soil, especially the halophytic rhizosphere, is a potential source of salt-tolerant plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (ST-PGPR), which stimulate the growth of quinoa and improve its tolerance to salinity.
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DOI: 10.1111/ppl.14466
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