The use of plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria as a sustainable alternative for chemical nitrogen fertilizers has been explored for many economically important crops. For one such strain isolated from rice rhizosphere and endosphere, nitrogen-fixing Pseudomonas stutzeri A15, unequivocal evidence of the plant growth-promoting effect and the potential contribution of biological nitrogen fixation (BNF) is still lacking. In this study, we investigated the effect of P. stutzeri A15 inoculation on the growth of rice seedlings in greenhouse conditions. P. stutzeri A15 induced significant growth promotion compared to uninoculated rice seedlings. Furthermore, inoculation with strain A15 performed significantly better than chemical nitrogen fertilization, clearly pointing to the potential of this bacterium as biofertilizer. To assess the contribution of BNF to the plant growth-promoting effect, rice seedlings were also inoculated with a nitrogen fixation-deficient mutant. Our results suggest that BNF (at best) only partially contributes to the stimulation of plant growth.
Keywords: Biological nitrogen fixation; Effect size Cohen’s d s; Endophytes; Nitrogenase-deficient mutant; Plant growth-promoting bacteria; Pseudomonas.