Evaluation of tolerance level of burkholderia strain against aluminium stress and its role as a bionoculant on chlorophyll content and nitrate reductase activity in zea mays

Aluminium is one of the most abundant elements on earth’s crust. It forms approximately 7% of the earth’s crust. In soils having low pH, aluminium combines very frequently with oxygen forming complexes which are rather more stable and harmful to microbes as well as plant species. Microorganisms continuously interact with various elements present in soil. Some interactions are beneficial but under low pH conditions some interactions are there which can cause inhibitory effect on them thereby limiting their growth under such conditions. Our current study aimed at studying the tolerance level of Burkholderia strain under aluminium toxic conditions and its role as bioinoculants on chlorophyll content and nitrate reductase activity of leaves in Zea mays. The results clearly depicted that Burkholderia species were able to survive even at 20mM aluminium stressed conditions and further when this strain was used as bioinoculant for coating maize seeds under stressed conditions, the plant thus grown resulted in an increase in chlorophyll content as well as nitrate reductase activity by approximately 1.2- folds and 2.5- folds respectively. The research revealed that Burkholderia has immense potential to tolerate stress thereby enhancing physiological parameters of plants. Further, elaboration of this study may explore new insights towards mechanism involved and the role of microbes in improving crop productivity.