Efficacy of Indigenous Liquid Compatible Microbial Consortia on Seed Germination and Seedling Vigour in Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.)

In vitro study conducted to check out the efficacy of indigenous liquid compatible microbial consortia (CMC-1; P. fluorescens Pf-2 + P. fluorescens Pf-3 + T. asperellum T-11 + T. asperellum T-14 and CMC-2; P. fluorescens Pf-2 + P. fluorescens Pf-3 + T. asperellum T-11) on tomato plant growth promoting activities like seed germination, seedling vigour index, shoot length, root length, dry and fresh weight of shoot, dry and fresh weight of root was carried out by standard filter paper method. In vitro result shows that, CMC-1 significantly increased vigour index of tomato seedlings (124.30 %), including germination per cent (22.99 %), shoot length (83.44 %) and root length (81.37 %) over control at 10 DAS. In vivo study also conducted during 2017-18 and 2018-19. In vivo experimental results also revealed that, CMC-1 significantly increased seedling vigour index (116.87 % at 20 DAS and 81.14 % at 30 DAS), germination per cent (20.75 % at 10 DAS), shoot length (67.12 % at 20 DAS and 33.74 % at 30 DAS) and root length (103.16 % at 20 DAS and 147.62 % at 30 DAS) over control. Among the tested microbial consortia, outstanding results were obtained in CMC-1 indicating better plant growth promoting potential and thus exhibiting tremendous potential for their commercial exploitation.