IJSRST1841333 | Received : 12 Feb 2018 | Accepted : 26 Feb 2018 | January-February-2018 [ (4) 2: 1479-1484 ] © 2018 IJSRST | Volume 4 | Issue 2 | Print ISSN: 2395-6011 | Online ISSN: 2395-602X Themed Section: Science and Technology 1479 Plant Growth Promoting Characteristics of Bacillus Licheniformis DS3 Isolated from Agriculture Field Soil D. Silpa, P. Brahmaji Rao, G. Kranthi Kumar, M. Raghu Ram* Department of Botany & Microbiology, Acharya Nagarjuna University, Guntur, Andhra Pradesh , India ABSTRACT Plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) are known to influence the plant growth by various direct or indirect mechanisms. In search of efficient PGPR strains with multiple activities, a total of 10 bacterial isolates belonging to Bacillus species isolated from different banana field soils, Tadepalli, Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh, India. Out of ten only one strain Bacillus licheniformis DS3 showed potential activity of producing IAA, Gibberellic acid production, Siderophore production and excretion of Ammonia. Bacillus licheniformis DS3 showed the maximum IAA and Gibberellic acid productions are 142 µg/ml and 74.75 µg/ml respectively. An orange halo appears around the Bacillus licheniformis DS3 on CAS agar media indicates the siderophore production. The optimum conditions for IAA production in Bacillus licheniformis DS3 are 0.1 % L-tryptophan, 48 h of incubation, Glucose (1%) and Ammonium sulphate (0.5%) were used as carbon and nitrogen sources. This strain has shown to exhibit multiple plant growth promoting characteristics. These plant growth promoting abilities can make this isolate a potential PGPR candidate for its application in sustainable agriculture. Keywords : Ammonia, PGPR, IAA, Gibberellic acid (GA3), Siderophore I. INTRODUCTION Plant growth promoting Bacillus licheniformis (PGPB) are beneficial bacteria which have the ability to colonize the roots and either promotes plant growth through direct or indirect mechanism or via biological control of plant diseases (Kloepper and Schroth, 1978). They are associated with many plant species and are generally present in varied environments. Strains with PGPB characteristics, belonging to genera Bacillus licheniformis, have been reported (Hurek and Reinhold-Hurek, 2003). Bacteria that colonize the rhizosphere and plant roots, and enhance plant growth by any mechanism are referred to as PGPR. Plant growth promoters can exhibit a variety of characteristics responsible for influencing plant growth. The common traits include production of plant growth regulators (like auxin, gibberellins, and ethylene, siderophores, HCN and antibiotics (Arshad et al., 1992). Gibberellic acid (GA3) is an important member of the gibberellins family and acts as a natural plant growth hormone, controlling many development processes, which is gaining great attention all over the world due to its effective use in agriculture, nurseries, tissue culture ( Shukla et al., 2005). Gibberellic acid production was confirmed from B. pumilus and B. licheniformis [Gutierrez- Manero, 2001]. More than 80% of the bacteria isolated from the rhizosphere can produce (IAA) Indole Acetic Acid (Khalid et al., 2004) as secondary metabolite by obtaining tryptophan either through root exudates or from the proteins released by the dead bacteria cells (Patten and Glick, 1996). Indole-3-acetic acid (IAA), a plant hormone compound, is a natural auxin produced by plants, bacteria, fungi and a diverse group of organisms. It is a metabolite derived from tryptophan by many tryptophan dependant and tryptophan