Rhizosphere Pseudomonas sp. strains reduce occurrence of pre- and post-emergence damping-off in chile and tomato in Central Himalayan region.

Based on in vitro screening for PGP and anti-mycelial activity against three zoosporic pathogenic oomycetes, Pythium aphanidermatum 123, P. aphanidermatum 4746, and Phytophthora nicotianae 4747, seven bacterial isolates were selected for field trials on tomato and chile to test for plant growth promotion under natural and artificial disease-infested field sites in both winter and wet seasons. The effectiveness of isolates in the field trials correlated with the in vitro antagonism screening data. Pseudomonas sp. FQP PB-3, FQA PB-3 and GRP(3) showed substantial beneficial effects on plant growth promotion and lowered considerably the incidence of pre- and post-emergence damping-off in both the crops under various disease scenarios. For example, seed bacterization with these bacterial strains reduced pre-emergence-damping off by ca. 60-70% in the two natural sites, with and without histories of fungicide use in the winter season, and to a lesser extent, ca. 20-40%, in the warmer wet (high humidity; 85-92%) season. The suppression efficacy for post-emergence damping-off was less compared to pre-emergence damping-off although still significant (P > 0.05). Our data unambiguously show that screening of a large number of bacterial pool identifies promising isolates that show beneficial effects on all stages of plant growth in natural oomycete-infested regimes.