Abstract Description

Fruit trees are vital components of global agriculture, contributing significantly to food security, nutrition, and economic development. Their production is often constrained by suboptimal soil fertility, biotic and abiotic stresses. Plant Growth-Promoting Rhizobacteria (PGPR) have emerged as promising, eco-friendly alternatives to chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The soil samples from various fruit tree orchards (Apples, Pear, Olives, Grapes, Peace, Apricot and plum) were collected from which about one hundred and fifty rhizobacteria) were isolated from fruit tree orchards. The rhizobacteria, which differ in their cultural morphology were screened in-vitro for the presence of beneficial plant growth promoting traits. such as siderophore production, phosphate solubilisation, Indole Acetic acid (IAA) production). As a result, 37 isolates tested positive for siderophore production and indole acetic acid (IAA), 8 isolates solubilized inorganic phosphate, and 54 isolates tested positive to produce Ammonium. The isolates were further characterized by molecular methods that include DNA extraction, PCR amplification, sequencing and phylogenetic analysis by Maximum Likelihood method. Many of the isolates clustered with Pseudomonas, Paenibacillus, Peribacillus and Priestia on the phylogenetic tree. The results of this research are helpful for understanding of the diversity of the rhizobacteria found in the rhizosphere of fruit tree orchards. Moreover, they could be used as guidance to develop environmentally friendly biofertilizers with the selected PGPR instead of chemical fertilizers.