Isolation, Identification and Assessment of Salt Tolerant Zinc Solubilising Bacteria for Enhancing Availability and Use Efficiency of Zinc in Salt Affected Soils

Abstract

Bacterial isolation was carried out from collected rhizospheric soils samples using a modified pikovskaya agar medium. These isolates were able to solubilise zinc (Zn) from ZnO (0.1%) in the broth after 10 days of incubation when initial pH (maintained before autoclaving) of broth was 9.0. Out of 20 isolates, 04 isolates (SCM-22, SCM-31, SCM-32 and SCM-33) have ability to solubilise Zn more than 500 μg/mL, 04 isolates (SCM-28, SCM-30, SCM-39 and SCM-40) have capacity to solubilise Zn between 300-500 μg/mL and 12 isolates (SCM-1, SCM-2, SCM-3, SCM-4, SCM-9, SCM-10, SCM-11, SCM-13, SCM-15, SCM-20, SCM-36 and SCM-45) were able to solubilise Zn between 100-300 μg/mL (17 ppm in control) at 9.0 pH. With increase in pH value of broth from 9.0 to 13.0, growth of isolates was adversely affected and Zn was not solubilised by any of the isolates.