Beijerinckia fluminensis BFC-33, a novel multi-stress-tolerant soil bacterium: Deciphering the stress amelioration, phytopathogenic inhibition and growth promotion in Triticum aestivum (L.)

Environmental challenges like drought, salinity, heavy metals and pesticides directly/indirectly influence the environment and decreased the agricultural output. During its long developmental stages, cereal crops including wheat is exposed to a variety of abiotic/biotic stressors. Certain beneficial soil bacteria that can ameliorate environmental stresses can be exploited as crop growth promoters/enhancers under adverse situations. In this study, Beijerinckia fluminensis BFC-33 (accession no. MT672580) isolated from potato rhizosphere tolerated variousabiotic (drought, salinity, temperature, heavy metals, and fungicides) stresses. Strain BFC-33 demonstrated multifarious plant-growth-promoting (PGP) characteristics, such as the production of indole-3-acetic acid, P-solubilization, ACC deaminase, ammonia, siderophore, HCN, EPS, and extracellular enzymes. The antagonistic potential of BFC-33 against major fungal pathogens was ranked: Alternaria alternata (79.2%)Rhizoctonia solani (69%)Fusarium oxysporum (23.5%)Ustilaginoidea virens (17%). Furthermore, bacterization of wheat seeds witha multi-stress-tolerant strain revealed B. fluminensis as a plant growth enhancer and biocontrol agent. For instance, increase in root length (cm) in BFC-33 inoculated wheat exposed to abiotic and biotic stresses at the seedling stage was ranked: B. fluminensis (24.2)B. fluminensis + 100μgTBZLmL