1.3. Plant Growth and Drought Stress Conditions
A pot experiment was conducted to compare the efficacy of two …show more content…
Maize B73 variety seeds were surface disinfected with 75 % ethanol for 3 min, and then treated with sodium hypochlorite (2 %) for 5 min. The washing was repeated with sterile distilled water for 3 times (2 min). The efficacy of surface sterilization was checked by plating the seeds and aliquots of the final rinsing sterilized distilled water onto LB plates. When no colonies were observed on the LB plates, seeds were considered to be successfully surface disinfected. Seeds were incubated in bacterial suspensions (P. putida and P. fluorescens) for 12 hours. For the control group, seeds were treated with sterilized water as a mock inoculation. Three inoculated seeds were sown in each cylindrical shape pot having 6 inch diameter and were thinned to one plant after one week of germination of seedlings. Each pot contained ~2 kg of the sterilized growth media