CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Amelioration of Saline Stress in Soybean Seeds by Extremophile Plant Growth Promoting Bacteria Ana Paula Santos, Carolina Belfiore, María Eugenia FaríasPlanta Piloto de Procesos Industriales y Microbiológicos (PROIMI-CONICET)Salinity is a problem that threatens the quality and reduces the production of agricultural soils throughout the world. Argentina is classified as the third country worldwide with the largest area of soils affected by halomorphism. Soybean is one of the crops most affected by salinity and it is of great importance to solve this problem for their high value as food, and for their significance to the national economy. Therefore, the general objective of this work is to transform saline soils that today are not suitable for cultivation of soybean in productive and sustainable lands with the use of Plant Growth Promoting Bacteria (PGPB). We have been isolated, identifying and characterize Extremophile PGPB bacteria from Andean wetland with abilities of colonize the plant rhizosphere and confer beneficial effects such as the production of indole-3-acetic-acids (IAA), aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate (ACC) deaminase, N2-fixation and antagonism effects. Also, these bacteria conserve these proprieties under higher concentrations of salt and were able to ameliorate the germination phase of soybean under double of concentration of salt that the crop normally tolerate. In addition, the bacteria show an antifungal activity against M. phaseolina, a fungus which causes the phenomenon called ?carbonaceous rot? the roots start changing their aspect, withe to grey, and then the infection progress to all the plant.These results encourage continued studies for the use of Extremophile bacteria as bioinoculant for fight with problems of salinity of soils and fungus which limit the growth soybean crops.