Effect of Potassium Solubilizing Bacteria on Some Properties of Wheat and Potassium uptake at Greenhouse Condition

Potassium is one of the mostly needed essential nutrients and also abundant absorbed cation by the plants. Due to imbalanced fertilizer application, potassium deficiency is becoming one of the major constraints in crop production. Potassium deficiency resulted leaves dieback and grain yield reduction of wheat. Most of potassium in soil exists in the form of unavailable for plant. Plant growth promoting bacteria have the ability to increase the availability of nutrients for plant uptake. This study aimed to investigate the effect of potassium solubilizing bacteria to utilize soil potassium by wheat.
Material and The factorial experiment was conducted at greenhouse condition as a randomized complete design at three replications. Treatments consisted of four levels of bacteria (without inoculation (control), inoculation with Enterobacter cloacae R33, inoculation with Pseudomonas sp, inoculation with both Enterobacter cloacae R33 and Pseudomonas sp) and two levels of K2So4 (0 % and 50 % of potassium requirement). During the experiment, plant height and chlorophyll index were measured. At the end of cultivation period, dry weight of root and aerial part and also potassium concentration of root, shoot and grain was determined using flame photometer after dry digestion. Grain yield (5 shrubs per pot) and potassium uptake in grain was also determined. Exchangeable potassium of soil was measured using ammonium acetate.
Soil exchangeable potassium content using any of the bacterial treatments compared to control showed a significant increase (P The Maximum amounts of all measured properties in the treatment containing Enterobacter cloacae indicating possibility of its application as proper alternative of chemical fertilizer to reach optimal production and sustainable agriculture.