Narjes Haji Dashti
Kuwait University, Kuwait
Title: Effect of plant growth promoting rhizobacteria on fruit yield and chemical contents in tomato plants infected cucumber mosaic virus
Biography
Biography: Narjes Haji Dashti
Abstract
A study of the effect of two plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) strains, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Stenotrophomonas rhizophila, on fruit yields and chemical contents on cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) infected tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) fruits was performed. Two CMV strains CMV-KU1 which is a locally isolated CMV associated with a benign viral satellite RNA and CMV-16 a satellite free virus that causes severe stunting, manifested by vegetative and fruit yield loss in tomato were used. The study was conducted in parallel on two different cultivar varieties of tomato, namely Supermarmande and UC82B and results obtained for each were compared. The results indicated that the presence of the PGPR almost doubled the average yield per plant, even of those plants infected by the CMV viruses, compared to the healthy control treatments. The chemical analysis of tomato fruits revealed that the presence of the PGPRs increased the total protein, lycopene, alkalinity and phenol content of the tomato fruits compared to the healthy controls. However, PGPRs had no influence on reduced sugars, total soluble solids or the titerable acid content but reduced the amount of ascorbic acid in tomato fruits of infected plants compared to healthy controls.