Maize (Zea mays L.) seed Biofortification by plant growth promoting bacteria (PGPB)

Application of plant growth promoting bacteria (PGPB) plays several important roles in crops yield and quality enhancement. In order to investigate the effects of Azotobacter chroococcum, Azospirillum lipoferum+Azospirillum brasilense and Pseudomonas fluorescence inoculation on some seed and seedling vigour related parameters of three late maturity maize (Zea mays L.) cv.s, SC 700, SC 704 and a promising single cross, B73× K18, seed inoculation were applied as single inoculation by each bacterium and co inoculated by two and all bacterial combined inoculants and without inoculation as control. Therefore, final germination percentage, mean germination time, mean daily germination, coefficient of germination rate, daily germination rate, seedling root and shoot length, seedling root and shoot dry weight and seedling vigour index were measured. The results showed that except for coefficient of germination rate and daily germination rate other traits were significantly affected by interactions of hybrids and PGPB. SC704 hybrid had the highest germination percentage at shortest mean germination time (7% shorter). SC704 hybrid hadproduced greater seedling, primary root and shoot dry weight too. B73× K18 and SC700 were the next rank, respectively after treating by inoculants of all bacteria compare the control.seeds inoculation with either Azotobacter plus Pseudomonas or with each of them showed the most positive effects on seed germination and vigour attribute. Likewise, it was recorded all bacteria inoculants caused the strong enhancement on seed germinability and seedling vigour parameters and in terms of synergistic effect of PGPB, which had a great role to reach the targets and developing sustainable agriculture by seed biofortification.