Int.J.Curr.Microbiol.App.Sci (2019) 8(11): 268-272 268 Original Research Article https://doi.org/10.20546/ijcmas.2019.811.031 Selection and Characterization of Rhizosphere Fungi Producing Siderophore Eka Wisdawati 1* , Tutik Kuswinanti 2 , Ade Rosmana 2 and Andi Nasruddin 2 1 Graduate School, Hasanuddin University, Indonesia 2 Plant Pest and Disease Department, Hasanuddin University, Indonesia *Corresponding author ABSTRACT Introduction Iron is a micronutrient which is highly necessary for almost all organisms because it has the role in enzymatic and metabolism process like respiration and DNA synthesis (Kraemer, 2003; Miethke, 2017). Similarly, plants require iron nutrient for their growth and development. In nature, iron in forms of oxides and hydroxide are abundant but difficult to be absorbed by plants because Fe 3+ is less soluble. As a result, they are difficult to be used by organisms. They are different from some microorganisms like bacteria (Arora, 2017; Patil 2014, Chakraborty, 2014), yeast (Ghosh, 2015) and fungi (Ghosh, 2017; Usha, 2013) that can secrete secondary metabolite siderophore with less iron compound (Hussein, 2019; Prema, 2013). Some fungi producing siderophore are Trichoderma harzianum, T. viride, T. asperellum (Ghosh, 2017), Aspergillusniger and A. flavus (Usha, 2013). Microorganisms release siderophore to scavenge mineral iron by forming dissolved Fe 3+ complex through active transport mechanism (Kraemer, 2003). Siderophore International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 8 Number 11 (2019) Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas.com Iron has low solubility in nature so that the role of siderophore as chelating iron and inhibiting a pathogenic enzyme is needed for plant growth. In this study, we selected and characterized fungi producing siderophore with the aim can be used as biofertilizer and biocontrol. There were 10 fungal isolates in total from rhizosphere which were obtained produced various siderophores. Catechol siderophore emitted was between 5,07μg l -1 and 14.87 μg l -1 while the salicylate siderophore ranged from 3.89 μg l -1 to 7,21 μg l -1 . ETR17 which produced the highest rate of catechol siderophore which was 14.87 μg l -1 and salicylate siderophore 7.21 μg l -1 . The isolate was identified and characterized as Aspergillussp Keywords Fungi, Iron, Rhizosphere, Siderophore Accepted: 04 October 2019 Available Online: 10 November 2019 Article Info