Effectiveness of endophytic bacteria <i>Paenibacilus polymyxa</i> to control bacterial leaf blight (<i>Xanthomonas oryzae</i> pv. <i>oryzae</i>) in rice plants

Abstract The use of endophytic bacteria Paenibacillus polymyxa is a relatively safe control and does not damage the environment. P. polymyxa is one of the endophytic bacteria from the stem of rice plants and has a 51.54% inhibition percentage against Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae . The use of endophytic bacteria to control bacterial leaf blight that has been carried out by researchers has several application methods that can reduce the percentage of disease attack. The purpose of this research is to evaluate the effectiveness of the application of endophytic bacteria P. polymyxa to suppressed bacterial leaf blight disease in rice plants. This research used a Non-Factorial Completely Randomized Design (CRD) consisting of eight treatments and three replicates. The application of 10 8 cell.ml −1 endophytic P. polymyxa on rice aged 4 weeks, then follow by inoculation of 10 6 cell.ml −1 pathogenic Xanthomonas oryzae . The observed variable are incubation period, percentage of disease incidence, disease severity, rice yield, and peroxidase enzyme activity. The result shown that application of endophytic bacteria P. polymyxa with seed soaking and leaf spraying of rice plants is effective to suppressed bacterial leaf blight because it has a longer average incubation period, a lower percentage of disease incidence, severity and higher plant yield than other treatments.