Alleviate Drought Effects in Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) through PGPRs to increase its Productivity at Different Moisture levels

Prolonged and severe drought spell during growing season of field crops especially under rain fed conditions affects growth and productivity due to impact of ongoing climate change and is likely to enhance day by day directing to worldwide food insecurity. This experiment was planned to alleviate drought effects on chickpea through PGPRs to observe its productivity at three moisture levels (50%, 70% and 90% of field capacity) in the pots keeping under glass house. Different bacterial strains were isolated from nodules, rhisospheric and rhizoplane soil of the chickpea plants taken from the field under stressful conditions. Six isolates were morphologically and biochemically characterized and identified through 16sRNA sequencing. Then, eight consortia were made from combination of identified six isolates and tested on chickpea plants. The consortia under treatment T3 showed best performance by giving 11.817 nodules plant-1 and grain yield 15.483 g pot-1 at moisture level 1 (50% of FC) followed by T5 which showed 22.837 nodules plant-1 and grain yield 20.607 g pot-1 at moisture level 2 (70% of FC). Similarly, consortia under treatment T2 gave 23.443 plant-1 and 20.283 g pot-1 regarding nodules and grain yield respectively at moisture level 3 (90 % FC). The experimental results indicate the key role of bacterial isolates consortium on chickpea productivity under drought stressful environment. The present study showed that the consortium T3 (Mesorhizobium ciceri SS1+Bacillus mojavensis PMCC-9 + Enterobacter cloacae PMCC-7) can perform best in drought conditions (50% of FC). Similarly, T5 (Mesorhizobium ciceri SS5+Bacillus mojavensis PMCC-9 + Enterobacter cloacae PMCC-7) and T2 (Mesorhizobium ciceri SS1+Bacillus mojavensis PMCC-9 + Bacillus subtilis PMCC-4) can be adopted in moderate moisture availability (70% of FC) and in irrigated areas (90% of FC) respectively for maximum productivity of chickpea.