Indigenous bacterial endophytic PGPMs of chickpea: Characterization and hidden antagonistic potential against Rhizoctonia bataticola causing dry root rot of chickpea

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is grown in more than 50 countries. India is the largest chickpea-producing country accounting for 64% of the global chickpea production. However, the production is contrained by the dry root rot disease caused by Rhizoctonia bataticola. Considering this problem, the investigation was carried out to isolate, characterize and the antagonistic potential of indigenous endophytic PGPMs for one of the components in the integrated management of dry root rot of chickpeas in eco-friendly manner. Hence, the isolation of thirty endophytic PGPMs was carried from chickpea by using the spread plate technique. The cultural characters and Gram’s staining reaction confirmed that the endophytic PGPMs isolated from chickpea plant tissues were bacteria. Among thirty bacterial strains, eight showed more than 50% of mycelial inhibition of the pathogen. Out of eight strains, five highly superior strains were selected and subjected for 16S rDNA gene sequencing using the universal primers (16Sr DNA F and 16Sr DNA R), which produced amplified products of size 1500 bp. nBLAST results of 16S rDNA gene sequence revealed that all the endophytic bacterial PGPMs showed homology with genus Bacillus but with different species. The five potential strains namely, BEPGPM-5, BEPGPM-9, BEPGPM-27, BEPGPM-28, and BEPGPM-30 were identified and confirmed as B. tropicus, B. pacificus, B. cereus, B. subtilis, respectively, based on molecular technique.