One of the major challenges in agriculture is to ensure sufficient and healthy food availability for the increasing world population in near future. This requires maintaining sustainable cultivation of crop plants under varying environmental stresses. Among these stresses, salinity is the second most abundant threat worldwide after drought. One of the promising strategies to mitigate salinity stress is to cultivate halotolerant crops such as quinoa. Under high salinity, performance can be improved by plant growth promoting bacteria (PGPB). Among PGPB, endophytic bacteria are considered better in stimulating plant growth compared to rhizosphere bacteria because of their ability to colonize both in plant rhizosphere and plant interior. Therefore, in the current study, a pot experiment was conducted in a controlled greenhouse to investigate the effects of endophytic bacteria i.e., Burkholderia phytofirmans PsJN on improving growth, physiology and yield of quinoa under salinity stress. At six leaves stage, plants were irrigated with saline water having either 0 (control) or 400 mM NaCl. The results indicated that plants inoculated with PsJN mitigated the negative effects of salinity on quinoa resulting in increased shoot biomass, grain weight and grain yield by 12%, 18% and 41% respectively, over un-inoculated control. Moreover, inoculation with PsJN improved osmotic adjustment and ion homeostasis ability. In addition, leaves were also characterized for five key reactive oxygen species (ROS) scavenging enzyme in response to PsJN treatment. This showed higher activity of catalase (CAT) and dehydroascobate reductase (DHAR) in PsJN-treated plants. These findings suggest that inoculation of quinoa seeds with Burkholderia phytofirmans PsJN could be used for stimulating growth and yield of quinoa in highly salt-affected soils.

Dansk Agro Aps Snubbekorsvej 20 C DK 2630 Tåstrup Denmark

Department of Adaptive Biotechnologies Global Change Research Institute CAS 603 00 Brno Czech Republic

Department of Agronomy Muhammad Nawaz Shareef University of Agriculture 66000 Multan Pakistan

Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences Faculty of Science University of Copenhagen Højbakkegård Allé 13 DK 2630 Tåstrup Denmark

Institute of Soil and Environmental Sciences University of Agriculture Faisalabad 38040 Pakistan

Quinoa Quality ApS DK 4420 Regstrup Denmark

School of Water Conservancy and Civil Engineering Northeast Agriculture University 150030 Harbin China

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Antioxidant Responses and Redox Regulation Within Plant-Beneficial Microbe Interaction