Application of molecular techniques for rapid identification and characterization of rhizobacterial strains for enhanced crop performance

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Plant growth promoting bacteria form the basis of XiteBio Technologies business. These bacteria are formulated into inoculants that are applied to crop plants. This results in enhanced growth and tolerance of stress, and potentially reduces the requirements for application of fertilizers and pesticides. The company wishes to expand its line of inoculants. It currently has 2,000 novel isolates from rhizosphere soil in its collection, and some of these strains might be good candidates for inoculant development. As a first step, it is necessary to determine the taxonomic identities of these isolates, and this will be done by 16S rRNA sequencing, as well as using the BIOLOG Microbial ID system. The Illumina MiSeq instrument will be adapted for this DNA sequence analysis. Once the identities are known, and potentially pathogenic strains are removed from further analysis, a series of plant growth promotion tests will be performed. Following this analysis, the company should have a series of potential strains for further development of inoculant products.