Authors: Ty Wilson
Mentors: Amita Kaundal
Insitution: Utah State University
Climate-induced environmental stresses and the increased use of fertilizers to meet the increasing demand for food significantly threaten food production and soil health. In natural environments, microbes are vital to the growth and development of plants. Their presence in the soil allows for enormous flexibility and nutritional availability for plants, particularly those living in harsh conditions. A plant’s microbiome, especially the underground, plays a significant role in its growth and development and mitigates environmental stresses. Idaho and Utah are particularly challenging environments due to extreme temperatures and arid soil. However, despite these difficult environmental factors, the native plants of Utah and Idaho can thrive. Here, we are exploring the rhizosphere microbiome of Shepherdia x utahensis ‘Torrey,’ a hybrid of two highly drought-tolerant buffaloberry species, S. argentea and S. rotundifolia native to the Intermountain West region of the US to isolate plant growth promoting bacteria. In this study, we isolated drought-resistant plant growth-promoting microbes from the rhizosphere of hybrid buffaloberry. Root samples of hybrid buffaloberry were collected from three locations in Utah: the USU campus, Greenville Farm USU, and the USU botanical garden, Kaysville. The rhizosphere was removed from these root samples and pooled together. The bacteria were isolated on five different bacterial growth media twice. The isolated microbes were then purified using the streak plate method. Forty-six unique isolates were selected based on morphological characteristics and tested for four plant growth-promoting traits. Fourteen bacteria could show the ability to fix nitrogen fix, 18 produced a siderophore, 17 could solubilize phosphate, and 11 produced catalases. IAA production, ACC deaminase, and protease activity assays are in progress. All isolates will be identified by 16S rRNA Sanger sequencing.