The Influence of PGP Bacteria Enterobacter ludwigii BLK on the Hormonal Balance and Growth of Wheat Varieties with Contrasting Drought Resistance under Conditions of Soil Moisture Deficiency
摘要
The research aimed to determine the effectiveness of using a strain of auxin-producing rhizosphere bacteria to protect wheat plants of different drought-resistant varieties from drought. To carry out the experiments, we selected the soft spring wheat varieties Kinelskaya Yubileynaya (drought-resistant, four points on Ogorodnikov’s five-point drought resistance scale) and Ekaterina (less resistant, two points), as well as the bacterial strain Enterobacter ludwigii BLK, which synthesizes 2000 ng/mL of auxins and 12 ng/mL of abscisic acid. Wheat was grown on a light platform in containers with soil, five plants each, in six repetitions. Plants were treated during the formation of the third leaf by single spraying with a suspension of bacteria (titre 108 CFU/mL), control plants were treated with water. Drought was created by reducing irrigation to 30% of the total moisture capacity of the soil; control was at 60%. Samples for hormones were taken on day 3 after treatment, growth parameters were determined after 2 weeks. Under drought conditions, bacterial treatment stimulated the growth of shoots and roots of plants of the Ekaterina variety by 1.6 and 1.2 times compared to the control, which was accompanied by a decrease in stress abscisic acid in plants by 38%. At the same time, the auxin content in the shoots increased three times, while it decreased six times in the roots. Bacteria did not have a positive effect on the growth of plants of the Kinelskaya Yubileiny variety, which is associated with an increase in the amount of ABA by 44%. The auxin balance of plants of this variety also differed: there was a fourfold increase in auxin content in the roots and a twofold decrease in the shoots. The bacterial strain had a beneficial effect only on a drought-tolerant wheat variety and is likely to be effective in maintaining the growth of plants of such genotypes during short-term dry periods.