Soil microorganisms, as the sole component, play a major role in nurturing agricultural productivity and regulating soil health by affecting biological and biochemical processes and soil functioning. Among soil microorganisms, yeasts are present at a greater order of magnitude in the rhizosphere region depending on their nutritional preference. More than half of soil yeasts exhibit a variety of positive effects on plants, viz., plant growth promotion, phosphate solubilization, nitrogen and sulfur oxidation, siderophore production, and stimulation of mycorrhizal root colonization. With this prelude, work with the core idea of isolating soil yeasts from distinct soil ecosystems and evaluating their impact on plant growth was carried out. From the experiments performed, 61 isolates were identified, and 16 were selected for further investigation of their ability to promote plant growth via molecular screening. Of the sixteen isolates, fifteen exhibited the ability to solubilize phosphate and one isolate out performed the reference strain. Thirteen isolates were found to possess the zinc solubilization potential and 14 released potassium efficiently. All sixteen yeast isolates were found to produce indole acetic acid and gibberellic acid in considerable amounts. In addition, the antimicrobial traits were also evidenced by siderophore production by all sixteen isolates and HCN production by one yeast isolate. The principal component analysis correlated the growth-promoting abilities of the yeast isolates. The results showed that soil yeasts possess the potential to be used as microbial inoculants for plant growth promotion.
Soil Yeast, Plant Growth Promotion, Growth Hormone, Siderophore
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